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Non-fungible token (NFT) platform Zora raised $50 million in a seed funding round to expand its services to customers. The investment was led by prominent venture capital firms such as Haun Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, and Kindred Ventures.
Zora’s Valuation Tapped $600 Million
NFTs remain an intriguing feature for a big chunk of the crypto participants, allowing many startups to raise multimillion investments to strengthen their position in the field. The latest such entity is Zora.
It secured a $50 million fundraise financed by Katie Haun’s new crypto fund – Haun Ventures. Other participants included Kindred Ventures and Coinbase Ventures. It is worth noting that this was the first use of capital from Haun’s recently formed organization. Prior to that, she served at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z).
Sam Rosenblum – a Partner at Haun Ventures – classified non-fungible tokens as a “core building block that is central to the future of Web3.”
“We also see Web3 innovations like NFTs as a positive force for openness and decentralization in a web currently weighted too heavily towards centralized, opaque gatekeepers,” he added.
The latest fundraising brought Zora’s valuation to $600 million. The protocol vowed to use the fresh funds to create a friendly customer ecosystem where every user can launch NFT collections, independent markets, and experiences. Commenting on the move was Jacob Horne – Co-Founder of Zora:
“For our ecosystem, this is an acceleration of the public infrastructure that facilitates your advancement as artists, developers, and communities. It means more permissionless code deployed on more chains, better APIs, more Zoratopias around the world, and an increase in grants and hackathons.”
In March last year, Zora raised $8 million in an equities sale, while in October 2020, it secured a $2 million investment.
Katie Haun’s new Challenge
Earlier this year, the former General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz – Katie Haun – left the firm and launched a venture capital fund focused on cryptocurrencies and Web3 startups. Her entity was also joined by other a16z members, such as Rachael Horwitz (Head of Crypto Marketing).
Shortly after, Haun revealed her company’s intentions to raise a whopping $900 million for a pair of digital asset investment funds. $300 million of that amount will be focused on crypto startups, while the remaining $600 million will be raised for a fund dedicated to other firms and digital tokens.
However, more recent reports indicated that she actually raised a whopping $1.5 billion, making it the most substantial amount raised by a solo female founding member.
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