Take a look at these 9 meta-universe /NFT teams with over 100 million in financing, which may become the future pillars of the field

原文标题：《 这 9 个 NFT 和元宇宙项目去年融资上亿，今年或更有发展潜力 》

原文作者： Zen，PANews

Since the beginning of the year, both the primary and secondary markets in the field of NFT and metauniverse have seen a significant recovery. CryptoSlam data shows that the sales volume of NFT in January 2023 reached $997.53 million, an increase of 41.96% compared with December 2022. Among them, the NFT market turnover on the Ethereum chain was close to $600 million, up 46.8%; According to the PANews Column Financing Weekly, the NFT and the Metacom continued to heat up in January, with a total of 20 financing events announced.

Not only that, the metauniverse project Highstreet's utility and governance Token HIGH skyrocketed, and the free CreateraGenesis Land in the metauniverse project Createra, led by a16z, skyrocketed on launch day. The more than five-fold increase in average selling prices in a single day is one of the strongest indications that the cryptocurrency industry is showing signs of recovery in January 2023. Still, it's easier to remember the good news early last year than the New Year so far. Here's a look back at the $100 million NFT and meta-universe projects that will be raised in 2022. These big-money projects will no doubt have a longer life cycle and bring new creativity to the market.

Yuga Labs

Yuga Labs is a blockchain technology company that develops NFT and digital collectibles, focusing on blockchain, cryptocurrency and digital media, and is one of the fastest growing companies in the Web3 space. Yuga Labs got its start in April 2021 with the launch of Bored Ape Yacht Club's (BAYC) NFT series, In the same year, Bored Ape Kennel Club and Mutant Ape Yacht Club were introduced.

回顾 2022 年是 Yuga Labs 高速成长的一年，尤其在该年 3 月，官方连续放出多个大新闻：11 日，宣布收购 Larva Labs 旗下的 CryptoPunks 和 Meebits 这两个蓝筹 NFT 项目；17 日，宣布将 ApeCoin 作为主要 Token ；18 日，宣布推出元宇宙项目 Otherside；22 日，宣布以 40 亿美元的估值筹集了 4.5 亿美元融资，本轮融资由 a16z 领投，Animoca Brands、Sound Ventures 等参投。今年 1 月底，其联合创始人 Aronow 于 1 月底宣布由于健康问题已退出公司日常运营。

Yuga Labs has earned 120,000 Apes ($660,000) in just one week after BAYC launched its cast game Dookey Dash on Jan. 19, according to Dune Analytics. Players spent nearly 145,000 APE in the game, which was closed on February 9. After Dookey Dash, BAYC will unveil several more events: The Summoning launch on February 15; "Lick the toad" (or a new character) in late February; Type of mecha revealed in early March; The "Across the Rift" chapter was released in early April; Launch the "EVO 2 Tour" in early May.

OpenSea

OpenSea is the largest digital marketplace for encrypted collectibles and NFTS, where users can create, buy, sell, and auction NFTS for sports NFTS, virtual worlds, trading cards, decentralized domain names, digital collectibles, and more, with more than 2.58 million users as of January 31. The company was launched in December 2017 by Devin Finzer and Alex Atallah. With the advent of NFT boom in 2021, OpenSea experienced explosive growth, with a sudden increase in users and transaction volume, and completed three rounds of financing in less than a year:

In March 2021, OpenSea completed A $23 million Series A financing led by a16z; In July 2021, the company completed $100 million in Series B financing at a valuation of $1.5 billion, with a16z as the lead investor; In January 2022, completed a $300 million Series C funding round led by Paradigm and CoatueManagement at a $13.3 billion post-investment valuation.

In 2022, all creators on OpenSea collectively earned more than $1 billion from the platform's creator fees, which do not include sponsorship revenue, participation awards or grants. This revenue is generated directly from creator fees for reselling the work and is immediately settled on the chain between the buyer, seller and creator. In an interview with the Financial Times, OpenSea's CEO said that the NFT circuit is healthier than the overall crypto space, and that in the future NFT could be priced in dollars.

With the continuous development of NFT, the advantage of OpenSea, which was once a stable leader, is no longer available, and the NFT trading platform has emerged. To this end, OpenSea began to focus on new features and product optimization to improve the user experience. Since the New Year, Sweep has been launched in bulk NFT purchase feature, allowing users to save Gas costs; Redeploy the NFT category page and add game options. Launch a "Bulk listing action bar" and support the purchase of "alternative items" based on ERC-1155; Launch "3-hour position protection period" mechanism to reduce the risk of NFT theft; Launch project aggregation service based on Seaport protocol; OpenSea also announced the launch of a Private Beta Testing Program that will allow participants to pre-test new features and help OpenSea stress test and find bugs.

Autograph

Launched in August 2021, Autograph is a platform for stars and fans of sports, music, gaming, and more. It was co-founded by NFL legend Tom Brady and Internet entrepreneur Richard Rosenblatt. The platform focuses on pop culture memorabilia and classic moments in sports history, mining the fan base of specific sports stars and allowing users to buy videos and pictures with signatures of famous athletes, singers and other stars as digital assets, dubbed "the future of fandom."

In January 2022, Autograph announced it had closed a $170 million Series B funding round led by a16z and venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, with participation from 01A and former a16z executive Katie Haun. Following the round, Haun also joined Autograph's board of directors, along with Arianna Simpson, a general partner at a16z, and Ilya Fushman, a partner at Kleiner Perkins. In October 2022, Autograph co-founder Richard Rosenblatt became a senior adviser to a16z crypto, while former Autograph board member Sam Bankman-Fried, after the FTX Thunderstorm, Was promptly fired with the support of a16z.

Autograph has already collaborated with Tiger Woods, Simone Biles, Derek Jett, Usain Bolt, Tony Hawk and Naomi Osaka, as well as celebrities and IP names such as The Weeknd and SLAM magazine. Autograph also signed a multi-year NFT deal with sports media outlet ESPN in April 2022, and the two released their first NFT collection together that month.

Autograph Brady, who announced his retirement in early February, is focusing on his new career. In addition to using his network to bring more celebrities to the platform, Autograph Brady is also partnering with the PGA Tour, It plans to launch a golf-focused NFT platform this year.

Related: Will Tom Brady pull off a crypto turnaround?

Genies

Genies is an avatar technology company founded in 2017. Genies provides tools (Genies Avatar Creator OS) that allow users to create their own avatars, wearable fashion items, avatar virtual worlds and interactive experiences in web3. In 2021 Genies established partnerships with Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group to become the "official avatar and digital merchandise NFT provider", For example, the avatars of Universal Music's famous artists Justin Bieber, Shawn Mendes, Rihanna, Cardi B and others are developed and hosted by Genies.

In September 2022, Genies announced The launch of "The Warehouse", an NFT fashion marketplace based on the Flow blockchain. The new platform is connected to 3D cartoon avatars equipped with masks, shoes, backpacks and other digital accessories created by users in the Genies app.

Genies has a close cooperation with Dapper Labs. In addition to co-launching "The Warehouse", Dapper Labs also participated in Genies' $65 million Series B financing. There are also Coinbase Ventures, Hashkey and others. In April 2022, Genies raised $150 million at a $1 billion valuation, led by Silver Lake, Bond Capital, Breyer Capital and New Enterprise Associates, Former Disney CEO Robert Iger joined and became a member of the board. Late last year, 11:11 Media, owned by American socialite Paris Hilton, launched a fashion collection of avatars on Genies, the avatar platform.

"The next big fashion brands, designers and influencers will emerge from our tools in the form of avatar ecosystem builders," says Jake Becker, creative director at Genies. Genies, which has not disclosed its plans for 2023, is currently looking for fashion bloggers with 2,000 or more followers on TikTok to promote its products and expand its reach.

Magic Eden

Magic Eden is the highest volume NFT trading platform on the Solana chain. In addition to the NFT exchange marketplace, Magic Eden's core products are Launchpad, Eden Games, Magic Ventures and Magic DAO. Launchpad is a convenience for creators and project parties, and a way for users to discover quality assets. Eden Games is a content hub for game publishers, pre-positioning games as an entry point to Web3. Magic Ventures is the venture capital arm of Magic Eden and focuses on investing in the gaming sector.

Magic DAO is a platform that explores decentralized governance for making major decisions around the future of its marketplace, and Magic Ticket holders will become members of the Magic DAO by default.

Less than a year, Magic Eden has completed three financing. In February 2022, Magic Eden raised $27 million from Sequoia Capital, Paradigm, Greylock, and others (now revised to $16.9 million); In June 2022, Magic Eden completed $130 million Series B financing at a valuation of $1.6 billion, led by Electric Capital and Greylock; According to SEC filings, Tan Lu, CEO of Solana Eco NFT Marketplace Magic Eden, filed with the SEC on January 24 to complete a new round of funding for the project, which raised a total of $16.85 million.

In January, Magic Eden said the offending images on its platform had been hacked by image providers, but that the platform had not been hacked. To solve the problem of buying fake NFT, more verification layer is added. In February, Magic Eden was updated for the user experience, including simplified logins, collection page statistics, collector announcements, instant lists, and feature count filtering. In addition, Magic Eden has launched a multi-chain initiative to support Polygon-based game developers, and has already partnered with a number of game companies and platforms, including: BORA Games, Block Games, IntellaX, nWay, Boomland, Planet Mojo, and Taunt Battleworld.

Rario

Rario is the first cricket NFT platform and has the largest share of the cricket NFT market worldwide through exclusive partnerships with six international cricket federations and over 1,000 cricketers.

Ankit Wadhwa, co-founder and CEO of Rario, believes cricket is the second largest sport in the world with over 1.5 billion fans worldwide, and NFT on its platform is creating new forms of participation, allowing fans to own and trade digital collectibles.

2022 年 4 月，板球 NFT 平台 Rario 完成 1.2 亿美元融资，印度体育科技公司 Dream Sports 旗下风投 Dream Capital 领投，Alpha Wave Global、Animoca Brands 等参投。同年 9 月，Rario 与 Dream Sports 合作推出板球策略游戏 D3.club，拥有 Rario 球员卡的人将能免费参加。此外，绰号「板球之神」和印度最著名的运动员之一的 Sachin Tendulkar 与数字收藏品平台 Rario 合作首次涉足不可替代 Token (NFT) 的世界。Tendulkar 将成为 Rario 的战略投资者。在各个国家与地区的板球赛事举行期间，Rario 都配合同步推出了 D3.club 的游戏活动，目前正在进行的比赛就有巴基斯坦 T20 联赛，以及在南非举行的女子 T20 世界锦标赛。

Stability AI

Stability AI is a community-driven open source AI art creation startup with open AI models for graphics, language, audio and video development. Its developer community has more than 20,000 members. Its projects include StableDiffusion, audio tool Harmonai, and OpenBioML, a research tool for biology and life sciences. Stable Diffusion is a word-to-image generation model, completely free and open source, and all the code is available on GitHub. Stable Diffusion has been used in popular music videos, Hollywood movies and is used by more than 10 million people every day.

In October 2022, Stability AI announced a $101 million seed round of funding led by Coatue Management and Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sources say the round values Stability AI at $1 billion. In addition, metaverse world-building platform Stageverse integrated with Stable Diffusion to launch the world's first AI-generated avatar fashion design tool. With companies like OpenAI, Google, and Meta making rapid advances in AI technology, competition in the AI space has become more intense.

In January, the company was hit with two separate lawsuits from Getty Images, a supplier of images, and a group of artists. Obviously, in addition to constantly updating products and technologies in AI competitions, Stability also needs to resolve copyright disputes. How to view any legal or moral hazard that may exist may also determine the future of AI generation art.

FanCraze

FanCraze, a platform for fans to collect, use and interact with cricket through NFT, was co-founded by Wall Street veteran Anshum Bhambri, head of founding Operations of the Indian Premier League and others, with a founding team with backgrounds in technology, sports, finance and gaming, and a mission to build a meta-universe for cricket.

In March 2022, cricket NFT platform FanCraze closed A $100 million Series A funding round led by Insight Partners, B Cpital, Mirae Financial, Tiger Global, Coatue Management, Courtside Ventures and Cristiano Ronaldo's CR7. Earlier this year, FanCraze partnered with the International Cricket Council (ICC) to launch "Crictos," an NFT-style cricket video collection similar to Dapper's NBA Top Shot, which is now running on the Flow blockchain. And will create an archive of more than 50 years of history. FanCraze has focused on official partnerships with cricket leagues and their teams, signing up as the official digital collectibles partner for the SA20 (new South African T20 cricket League) this year, as well as multi-year deals with 12 English county cricket clubs.

Pixel Vault

Pixel Vault is a Web3-centric NFT company focused on developing a variety of IP story series designed to engage collectors in their NFT and build an ecosystem for collections, expanding into sports, branding and gaming. The Pixel Vault team represents projects including via PUNKS Comics, MetaHero Identities and MetaHero Universe.

PUNKS Comics is an NFT comic based on the CryptoPunks characters. MetaHero Identities are a blockchain-based NFT collection of superheroes, villains, and mutants. MetaHero Universe is a social and gaming platform. Adidas launched its first NFT collection in late 2021, with Pixel Vault founder GFunk collaborating on the project. In February 2022, Pixel Vault announced a $100 million investment from Velvet Sea Ventures and 01A.

Pixel Vault is currently working on PUNKS Comic Issue #4, with an estimated release date of Q1 2023. PUNKS Comic Issue #4 will launch in conjunction with The fully revamped punkscomic.com website and be integrated into The Vault. Issues 5 and 6 will be released later. PUNKS Comic Issues 4-6 will be free of charge.

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