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{"id":2115,"date":"2022-03-23T15:12:13","date_gmt":"2022-03-23T15:12:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2022\/03\/23\/bored-ape-yacht-club-creator-raises-450-million-to-build-an-nft-metaverse\/"},"modified":"2022-03-23T15:12:14","modified_gmt":"2022-03-23T15:12:14","slug":"bored-ape-yacht-club-creator-raises-450-million-to-build-an-nft-metaverse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2022\/03\/23\/bored-ape-yacht-club-creator-raises-450-million-to-build-an-nft-metaverse\/","title":{"rendered":"Bored Ape Yacht Club creator raises $450 million to build an NFT metaverse"},"content":{"rendered":"

Source: https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/3\/22\/22991272\/yuga-labs-seed-funding-a16z-bored-ape-yacht-club-bayc-metaverse-other-side<\/a>
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Yuga Labs, the owner of three of the biggest NFT brands on the market, has raised $450 million in funding at a $4 billion valuation, the company announced today. The team behind Bored Ape Yacht Club plans to use the money to build a media empire around NFTs, starting with games and its own metaverse project.<\/p>\n

The team describes its metaverse project, called Otherside<\/em>, as an MMORPG meant to connect the broader NFT universe. They hope to create \u201can interoperable world\u201d that is \u201cgamified\u201d and \u201ccompletely decentralized,\u201d says Wylie Aronow, a co-founder of Bored Ape Yacht Club who goes by the pseudonym Gordon Goner. \u201cWe think the real Ready Player One<\/em> experience will be player run.\u201d<\/p>\n

The announcement comes just weeks after Yuga Labs made a major move to consolidate the NFT space, acquiring CryptoPunks and Meebits from Larva Labs<\/a>. The acquisition put three of the most lucrative NFT collections under one roof \u2014 and gave Yuga Labs a bigger roster of IP to pull from when crafting its game and metaverse plans. The company also launched a cryptocurrency, ApeCoin<\/a>, last week; the token will be governed independently and used as the primary currency in Yuga Labs\u2019 properties.<\/p>\n

Yuga Labs is partnering with \u201ca few different game studios\u201d to bring Otherside<\/em> to life, says CEO Nicole Muniz. The game won\u2019t be limited to Bored Ape holders, and the company plans to create development tools that allow NFTs from other projects to work inside their world. \u201cWe\u2019re opening the door to effectively a walled garden and saying \u2018Everybody\u2019s welcome.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Metaverse projects are all the rage right now \u2014 see Facebook renaming itself to Meta<\/a> \u2014 but Yuga Labs thinks other companies are going about their metaverse ideas wrong, giving the startup a chance to stand out. People won\u2019t bond from spending time together in a shared virtual space with nothing going on, says Greg Solano, a Yuga Labs co-founder who goes by the pseudonym Gargamel. Instead, he says, people bond from being put in positions where they have to collaborate.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou only play with people and make friends because you\u2019re getting your ass kicked,\u201d Solano says. \u201cBasically, we don\u2019t think deep social experience comes from essentially a Zoom chat and walking around saying \u2018hi.\u2019\u201d Yuga Labs declined to provide a timeline on the release of Otherside<\/em>. A play-to-earn game is also planned for later this year.<\/p>\n

The funding round, one of the largest for an NFT company to date, was led by the firm Andreessen Horowitz, which has been investing heavily in the Web3 space. It previously funded OpenSea, Dapper Labs, and Coinbase. Also joining the funding round are the game studio Animoca Brands and crypto firms Coinbase and MoonPay, among others. Chris Lyons, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, will join the board of Yuga Labs. Funding talks were first reported last month by the Financial Times<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

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