Dapper Labs, Inc., the Vancouver, BC-based company behind NBA Top Shot and the Flow blockchain, raised US$250M in funding.
The round was led by Coatue, with participation from existing investors a16z, GV (formerly Google Ventures) and Version One Ventures and new investors including BOND and GIC.
The company intends to use the funds to continue to scale and support major additional brand-driven sports, entertainment and music based products coming online and being developed on the Flow blockchain.
Founded in 2018 and led by Roham Gharegozlou, CEO, Dapper Labs is the company behind NBA Top Shot and the original developers behind the Flow blockchain. It leverages blockchain technology to bring NFTs and new forms of digital engagement to fans around the world. Dapper Labs’ current studio partners include the NBA, NBPA, WNBA, WNBPA, LaLiga, Warner Music Group, Ubisoft, Genies and UFC.
This latest round follows a year of growth for Dapper Labs. While still in open Beta, its flagship NBA Top Shot grew by 30x in 2021, with more than US$780M in collectibles bought and sold, more than 1.1M registered accounts of which over 48% own at least one moment, and over 13 million transactions.
With the launch of features designed to onboard consumers, Flow has also emerged as a go-to destination for over 3,000 developers, artists, creators and brands looking to build out their own blockchain based experiences and communities. Most recently, Google Cloud was unveiled as Flow’s cloud provider, and came on board to drive the next wave of mainstream NFT adoption on Flow.
FinSMEs
23/09/2021