Dapper Labs Reaches $7.6B Valuation After $250M Funding Round

Dapper Labs — the creator of Ethereum's (CRYPTO: ETH) ERC-720 non-fungible token (NFT) standard and the Crypto Kitties — closed a $250 million funding round led by Coatue.

What Happened: Dapper Labs' latest funding round also saw the participation of a16z, GV (formerly Google Ventures) and Version One Ventures with new investors including BOND and GIC. A source cited by industry news outlet Coindesk claims Dapper Labs received a $7.6 billion valuation.

Coatue Ventures Chairman Dan Rose said the firm "has been investing in technology trends for over 20 years and web 3.0 is one of the most exciting trends we've seen." According to him, "Dapper Labs is a leader in the space at the infrastructure level with Flow blockchain and in the application layer with NBA TopShot."

The announcement follows the firm raising $305 million from investors including Michael Jordan, Ashton Kutcher and Will Smith at the end of March — valuing the company at $2.6 billion. Per the release, Dapper Lab's NBA Top Shot grew by 30x in 2021, processed more than $780 million in collectibles bought and sold and had more than 1.1 million registered accounts of which 48% own at least one NFT. NBA Top Shot also processed over 13 million transactions.

Dapper Labs CEO Roham Gharegozlou also highlighted the firm's Flow (CRYPTO: FLOW) blockchain, which purportedly attracted over 3,000 developers, artists, creators and brands looking to build. Alphabet Inc.'s (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG) Google Cloud service also recently partnered with the firm to support the scaling of the network.

Photo: Gerd Altmann via Pixabay

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