Hollywood’s Ashton Kutcher and Will Smith companies also took part in the financing round. NBA Top Shot has moved more than $ 460 million in NFT trade.
Dapper Labs, the Top Shot collectibles platform’s creator, acquired $ 305 million in a funding round. Among the famous investors who took part in the round, users can find the former player Michael Jordan and the Brooklyn Nets’ current star in the NBA, Kevin Durant.
The company reported on the financing on Tuesday, March 30, and cited by specialized media such as Business Insider. Others involved in the capital investment appear in the text, including other NBA figures, such as Klay Thompson which ranks as a new addition to a group that already included some league figures.
The statement claims that athletes from the American baseball league, MLB, also took part in the investment. In the American football league, the NFL entered the group too. The list also highlights several companies; for instance, the investment firm Coatue, which led the round: 2 Chainz, Venrock, the Chernin Group, and USV, along with the companies Sound Ventures, of Ashton Kutcher; and Dreamers VC, by Will Smith.
According to a source, with this new fund injection, Dapper Labs reaches a valuation of about 2.6 billion dollars. Dapper Labs is the creator of NBA Top Shot, a non-fungible tokens (NFTs) platform representing game highlights in the basketball league.
The new capital will serve for the company to extend its tentacles beyond the borders of the NBA. Thus, other professional sports leagues would arrive with their own tokenized videos on the blockchain.
Said Roham Gharegozlou, CEO of Dapper Labs, said: “We’d want to bring the same magic to other sports leagues, as well as help other entertainment studios and independent creators find their approaches to exploring open platforms.”
NFTs are Gaining a Spot in Sports
NFTs, collectible tokens on some blockchain, are exploding positively among investors and enthusiasts of the cryptocurrency ecosystem. But they are also making their way faster among a more considerable diversity of people and industries.
In a matter of few months, the world of NFTs has turned into an industry that moves millions of dollars daily on different platforms and various types of trade in works of art, musical pieces, and endless digital representations of physical components.
And in the sports world, NFTs have found a substantial spot. NBA Top Shot is right now the platform of its kind with the highest volume of trade, according to DappRadar. In total, Top Shot had managed to move more than $ 460 million since its inception, three times what has been going through CryptoPunks, which ranks as second on the list.
The record for the most expensive NFT in NBA Top Shot belongs to a play by star LeBron James, sold for more than $ 200,000. However, a card from Portuguese soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo broke that record among sports NFTs, CriptoNoticias reported in mid-March.
By: Jenson Nuñez
