Stephanie Douse 
Yuga Labs, Bored Ape Yacht Club creator, reveals its NFT Metaverse Project ‘Otherside’.
Yuga Labs Completes $450 Million Fundraising Campaign
Yuga Labs, the company behind the two most popular NFT collections, has announced the completion of a $450 million fundraising campaign to further expand its NFT metaverse project.
This raises the company’s market capitalization to $4 billion.
The investment round was announced in a corporate news statement on Tuesday, with a16z named as the primary investor.
“Yuga Labs has quickly become a web3 culture, gaming, and entertainment empire,” said Chris Lyons, general partner at a16z crypto. “Mainstream adoption in web3 is accelerating at lightning speed, and Yuga is at the forefront of merging culture and innovation for everyone to enter the metaverse. We’re thrilled to invest in this brilliant team and their vision, and help forge the next frontier of community-owned entertainment.”
Andreesen Horowitz has become actively involved in all things web 3 and looks to have followed through on the anticipated investment arrangement with Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC).
‘The Sandbox,’ a Metaverse game, crypto exchanges FTX and MoonPay, and others have joined the investment leader.
The cash will be used to grow Yuga’s personnel and support joint ventures and collaborations that the company has in the works.
“This capital will give Yuga speed to market on many things underway, and bring in new partners with strategic thinking that share the vision,” said Yuga Labs partner Guy Oseary.
The intellectual property for BAYC, CryptoPunks, and Meebits, the first two of which are the most valuable NFT compilations on the market, is owned by Yuga.
Their respective market capitalizations are 1,060,611.52 ETH ($3.1 billion) and 716,147.28 ETH ($2.1 billion).
The funds will be used to scale the firm’s quickly increasing team, attract the top talent across creative, engineering, and operations areas, as well as for joint ventures and collaborations, according to the company.
Yuga Labs Reveals Metaverse Project
The business gave a sneak peek at its metaverse project, dubbed Otherside, on Friday.
“Already, a new economy is possible with the IP of Apes, Punks, and Meebits, owned by the community,” said Nicole Muniz, CEO of Yuga Labs. “The possibilities for blockchain’s impact on culture are endless, and so we are building a beautiful, interoperable world for people to explore and play in. There’s a lot to come.”
According to Greg Solano, a co-founder of Yuga Labs, the game will stand out among other Metaverse initiatives that are less competitive.
He explained, “You only play with people and become friends when you’re getting kicked in the ass.” “Basically, we don’t believe that having a Zoom chat and going around saying ‘hello’ provides a deep social experience.”
Despite the growing interest in NFTs, Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin isn’t a fan, particularly of Bored Apes. “The danger is that when you have these $3 million monkeys, it becomes a different form of gambling,” he remarked, referring to their enormous worth.