In recent months, more institutions and individuals seem to be betting their money on Web3 which appears to be helping the NFTs sector thrive further. KuCoin crypto exchange’s venture capital arm and nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace has confirmed their launch of a $100 million “Creators Fund” to assist in bootstrapping early-stage NFT projects at the intersection of sports, art, and GameFi.
KuCoin Ventures together with the Windvane NFT marketplace have set up the fund to enable artists and creators to showcase their work and also scale their business to bigger audiences. The companies said that they will focus on NFT projects that are contributing to the growth and expansion of the Web3 economy.
The fund’s mandate is to support these promising projects that contribute to the next iteration of the internet that is powered by blockchain technology.
Windvane is a new nonfungible token marketplace created by KuCoin aiming to tap into the exchange’s massive user base. At the time of publication, KuCoin is the fifth biggest cryptocurrency exchange by volume, based on data acquired from CoinMarketCap.
The recent surge of Web3 has provides creators with a new space to mint NFTs that have real utility within virtual worlds. The co-founder and chairman of venture capital company Animoca Brands, Yet Siu, recently said that Web3 offers an efficient way for the creators to work in partnership for both economic benefit and name recognition.
‘This is the Mona Lisa of the digital world’, This is what Sina Estavi who bought the NFT in March 2021 told then 😎
Jack Dorsey’s first tweet was converted to a NFT last yr & sold for $2.9 million. Now, it may be resold for less than $14,000. pic.twitter.com/fvDU37lgmV
— Naresh Nambisan 🧘♂️ (@nareshbahrain) April 17, 2022
While the NFT market has slowed down in recent weeks, as evidenced by the dropping resale value of Jack Dorsey’s genesis tweet NFT, the sector’s developers continue to attract considerable interest from venture capital.
Based on previous reports, NFT avatar startup firm Genies recently got $150 million from a Series C funding round at a valuation of $1 billion. In January 2022, NFT-focused holding firm Metaversal got $50 million to boost its investment capacity in the digital collectible, Web3, and metaverse industries.
Framework Ventures Allocates $200M To Web3 Gaming
Crypto-focused venture company Framework Ventures has raised around $400 million in new funding aiming to invest in early-stage firms across blockchain gaming, Web3, and decentralized finance (DeFi) sectors. Just like DeFi in 2020, gaming is believed to be the next big growth play for the blockchain sector in 2022.
The completed raise is scheduled to go towards “FVIII,” which is an oversubscribed fund worth $400 million, according to the company’s April 19 announcement. Nearly $200 million will be sent to the emerging blockchain gaming space.
This venture company that had an early exposure to decentralized finance now has at least $1.4 billion in assets under management (AUM). Framework Ventures is a proven early investor in projects like Aave, Chainlink, and The Graph.
Axie Infinity is a popular play-to-earn (P2E) game developed around collecting digital pet avatars known as Axies. It has offered a strong use case for the emerging paradigm. Based on data acquired from blockchain analytics platform Nansen, there are 2.8 million unique addresses that are currently holding 11.1 million Axies.
As reports emerged previously, Web3 is also boosting the continued growth and expansion of the NFT market by providing creators with the ability to develop NFTs with real use cases inside the virtual ecosystems.
Venture funds together with many other smart money investors have been careful to support Web3 development firms. On April 19, reports emerged that KuCoin launched their $100 million Web3 developers fund focusing primarily on NFT projects. In other news, the CoinDCX crypto exchange has raised $135 million to help in supporting the India-based Web3 projects.
Away from the blockchain sector, it is thought that the P2E model might have a major impact on the future of blockchain gaming. Chris DeWolfe, Myspace co-founder and former CEO, said that the business model of play-to-earn offers players additional control over their in-game experiences.
