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Bored Ape Yacht Club Creators in Funding Talks With Andreessen Horowitz: Report

The startup is seeking a valuation of as much as $5 billion in the proposed funding round.

A selection of Bored Apes, one of the bestselling NFT avatar series. (Screenshot/OpenSea)
A selection of Bored Apes, one of the bestselling NFT avatar series. (Screenshot/OpenSea)

Yuga Labs, the startup behind Bored Ape Yacht Club, is in talks with venture capital heavyweight Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) over a funding round that would give it a valuation as high as $5 billion, the Financial Times reported Thursday.

  • Yuga Labs is in talks about selling a multimillion-dollar stake with a16z among the firms it is courting, the Financial Times said, citing people with knowledge of the discussions.
  • Bored Ape Yacht Club, a collection of 10,000 algorithmically generated images of cartoon apes minted and sold as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the Ethereum blockchain, counts a score of celebrities as owners, including Paris Hilton and Steph Curry.
  • Rapper Eminem recently bought one on OpenSea for 123.45 ETH ($319,000).
  • Previously an early investor in Facebook, Twitter, Airbnb and Stripe, a16z has invested extensively in the cryptocurrency industry, recently telling investors it is looking to raise $3.5 billion for a new crypto venture fund.

Read more: A16z Publishes Web 3 Policy Proposal for World Leaders

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Jamie Crawley

Jamie has been part of CoinDesk's news team since February 2021, focusing on breaking news, Bitcoin tech and protocols and crypto VC. He holds BTC, ETH and DOGE.

Jamie Crawley