Decentralized video platform built on non-fungible tokens (NFT) Shibuya closed a seed funding round worth $6.9 million.
We are excited to announce our seed round of $6.9 million backed by @a16z and @variantfund, and notable angels @joetsai1999, @Joi, @KDTrey5, @ParisHilton, @StaniKulechov, @ljxie and more.
— Shibuya (@shibuyaxyz) December 8, 2022
The investment round was led by Andreessen Horowitz and Variant, with participation from basketball player Kevin Durant, fashion model Paris Hilton, Stani Kulechov, CEO of Aave, business angel Linda Se, and others.
The funds will be used to attract new content creators, expand the development team, and hire a lead UX/UI designer.
Co-founder of the platform is the renowned artist Emily Yang, better known by the pseudonym pplpleasr. In August 2021 she created the Fortune magazine cover, sold as an NFT for 429 ETH (more than $1.3 million at the time of the deal).
At ETHDenver in February 2022, Yang announced Shibuya as a decentralized blend of Netflix-style online cinema, Vimeo video hosting and Kickstarter crowdfunding platform.
Shibuya is now releasing the anime series White Rabbit, where viewers determine the plot direction through NFT minting and voting. Yang described the project as a blend of the show \”Black Mirror\” and Web3.
Earlier, the popular media player Winamp integrated support for non-fungible tokens on the Ethereum and Polygon networks.
In December Opera announced a partnership with Alteon LaunchPad to add NFTs to its \”crypto browser\”. The initiative is planned to launch in January 2023.
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