{"id":39844,"date":"2021-03-30T18:42:40","date_gmt":"2021-03-30T15:42:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=39844"},"modified":"2025-08-30T11:31:02","modified_gmt":"2025-08-30T08:31:02","slug":"developers-of-the-nba-top-shot-nft-platform-raise-305-million-from-michael-jordan-and-other-investors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/developers-of-the-nba-top-shot-nft-platform-raise-305-million-from-michael-jordan-and-other-investors\/","title":{"rendered":"Developers of the NBA Top Shot NFT platform raise $305 million from Michael Jordan and other investors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Dapper Labs project, behind the development of a blockchain ecosystem for fast dapps, has closed a $305 million financing round featuring NBA stars and venture investors.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Excited to share that we have just announced a $305 million funding round to grow our ecosystem on our path to mainstream adoption \ud83e\udd73<\/p>\n<p>Learn more here \ud83d\udc47<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ZTDgaD9uij\">https:\/\/t.co\/ZTDgaD9uij<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Dapper Labs (@dapperlabs) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/dapperlabs\/status\/1376885046120906757?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 30, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The round was led by investment firm Coatue. It was joined by NBA legend Michael Jordan, basketball star Kevin Durant, Ashton Kutcher&#8217;s Sound Ventures and Guy Oseary, Will Smith&#8217;s Dreamers VC, rapper 2 Chainz, and a number of other investors.<\/p>\n<p>The venture firm Andreessen Horowitz also participated in the financing through its crypto funds and growth funds.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">We are thrilled to take part in <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/dapperlabs?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@dapperlabs<\/a> new $305 million funding round via our crypto and growth funds. Their Flow blockchain and new marquee application, NBA Top Shot, are taking NFTs and blockchain gaming mainstream.<\/p>\n<p>From <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/cdixon?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@cdixon<\/a> &amp; <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DavidGeorge83?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@DavidGeorge83<\/a>: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/fN1h7k0NKD\">https:\/\/t.co\/fN1h7k0NKD<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 a16z (@a16z) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/a16z\/status\/1376906567661056013?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 30, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nba\/2021\/03\/30\/nba-top-shot-dapper-labs-valuation-funding-round\/7058307002\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\"> USA Today<\/a>, investors valued the project at $2.6 billion.<\/p>\n<p>Dapper Labs is known for the game CryptoKitties. In 2018 the company raised $15 million from Google, Samsung and Andreessen Horowitz.<\/p>\n<p>In 2019 the project raised $11.2 million to build the Flow blockchain. The team also struck partnerships with the NBA, the UFC, Dr. Suess and Warner Music Group.<\/p>\n<p>The first game on the Flow blockchain was NBA Top Shot. It resembles CryptoKitties, but instead of kittens, users collect non-fungible tokens called NBA Moments.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"vU8hKolA1D\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/what-are-nfts\">What is an NFT?<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; visibility: hidden;\" title=\"\u201cWhat is NFT?\u201d \u2014 ForkLog\" src=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/cryptorium\/chto-takoe-nft\/embed#?secret=sZU4MSIOcu#?secret=vU8hKolA1D\" data-secret=\"vU8hKolA1D\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Rapper LL Cool J, billionaire Paul Tudor Jones, former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi and SoFi CEO Anthony Noto invested in a new<a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/paul-tudor-jones-and-ll-cool-j-invest-in-crypto-fund-with-72-million-in-assets\"> cryptocurrency venture fund<\/a> with $72 million in assets. It invested in Dapper Labs, the Nori and Axelar projects.<\/p>\n<p>Subscribe to ForkLog news on <a href=\"https:\/\/vk.com\/forklogcom\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">VK<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Dapper Labs project, behind the development of a blockchain ecosystem for fast dapps, closed a financing round worth $305 million with participation from NBA stars and venture investors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39845,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1213,1133],"class_list":["post-39844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-nft","tag-venture-investments"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"30","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39844"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39844\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39846,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39844\/revisions\/39846"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}