SNEAK PEEK
- An enormous $50 million seed round will be led by venture capital company Adreessen Horowitz (a16z) for Gary Vaynerchuk’s NFT project VeeFriends.
- Each cartoon animal was hand-drawn by Vaynerchuk in the doodle art style, and he gave each a characteristically human quality like an “intelligent wasp” or a “kind gerbil.”
- VeeFriends estimates that the gathering produced almost 200,000 ETH in primary and secondary trades.
Adreessen Horowitz (a16z), a venture capital firm, announced that it is heading a massive $50 million seed round for Gary Vaynerchuk’s NFT initiative, VeeFriends, signaling a bright spot in a difficult funding environment for firms specializing in digital assets.
VeeFriends was introduced in May 2021, thanks to celebrity influence and by Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of VaynerMedia.
gm! I’m very excited to announce that @a16z crypto is leading a $50M round in @veefriends. We look forward to helping the team fuel expansion plans for its creative, technical and experiential operations that support the growing Web3 community! https://t.co/p2KN3SPMGT
— chrislyons (@ChrisLyons) July 28, 2022
According to a Medium post, VeeFriends plans to use the seed money to grow its intellectual property (IP) of the 283 VeeFriends characters across physical and digital channels. The platform intends to hire new personnel as well.
Chris Lyons, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, tweeted additional details on his company’s support of the “growing Web3 company.” The spokesperson for Vaynerchuk declined to comment.
Lyons praised VeeFriends and Vaynerchuk, stating they “represent the essence of the business” and are “committed to aiding his community members’ betterment.”
Vaynerchuk hand-drew each cartoon animal in the doodle art style and gave it a uniquely human trait, such as an “intelligent wasp” or a “kind gerbil.” There are seventeen of these characters in a limited edition UNO deck.
Lyons discovered that several of those “essential attributes for humans,” like tolerance, patience, and sincerity, were inspiring to the neighborhood.
Each token grants the holder to admission to the VeeCon conference, whose opening session was held in Minneapolis in May. Based on rarity, backdrop color, and level of access to Gary Vaynerchuk and VeeCon, the tokens are classified into three categories.
According to VeeFriends, the collection generated approximately 200,000 ETH in primary and secondary transactions during its rather brief existence. For all-time trading volume on OpenSea, it is in the top 30 collections.
