Uncovering NFT Investment List: How Are Top VCs Positioning?

After the 2020 DeFi Summer, rumors circulated that NFTs would take the baton and lead a new trend. In reality, from October to February of the following year, the NFT market remained lukewarm. It wasn't until March, when Christie's, a world-renowned auction house, sold an NFT digital artwork for a staggering $69 million, that NFTs officially "broke through" to mainstream media attention, naturally ushering in a wave of development enthusiasm. However, the low liquidity of art made it difficult to sustain the heat, and NFTs entered a correction period.

In early May, Uniswap V3 officially launched, with LP tokens using NFTs to replace the original ERC20 tokens, enabling market-making within specific price ranges. This brought NFTs into DeFi applications, kicking off the financialization of NFTs. Additionally, with the NBA playoffs underway and the UEFA Champions League final taking place, the NFT sports sector saw some warming. However, with poor overall market performance and clear pessimistic sentiment, NFTs still failed to enter a high-growth period.

Until the rise of GameFi, the Play-to-Earn model brought astonishing returns, and around the implementation of EIP-1559, market speculation held that beyond greatly expanding the Ethereum DeFi ecosystem, the value of on-chain NFT projects would also surge significantly. This created a dynamic of the GameFi sector and the collectibles sector chasing each other, leading to significant recent improvements in both NFT sales volume and total market capitalization.

According to incomplete statistics, more than 60 projects in the NFT industry have secured funding this year, covering infrastructure, trading platforms, gaming, sports, and other specialized tracks. Financing was primarily concentrated between April and August 2021, making it undoubtedly the second "star track" following DeFi. Among the investors in NFT investments, we can see the presence of top-tier VCs in the industry. In the NFT investment landscape, which VCs are placing bets, and what kind of projects can win their favor?

Four Companies Raised Over $100 Million, VCs Accelerated NFT Layout from April to August

On July 29, OpenSea, the largest NFT trading platform, completed a $100 million Series B funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), with a post-money valuation of $1.5 billion. According to Dune Analytics data, OpenSea's trading volume exceeded $325 million in July, a 119% month-over-month increase, continuing to hit record highs. Its July trading volume accounted for as much as 96% of the combined volume of seven trading platforms.

Besides OpenSea, since the beginning of the year, three other NFT companies or projects have secured funding exceeding $100 million. First, Dapper Labs, the development team behind CryptoKitties and NBA Top Shot, announced on March 30 that they had completed $305 million in financing, the largest funding round in the NFT space this year, with a post-money valuation rising to $2.6 billion. This round was led by investment firm Coatue, with participation from NBA stars Michael Jordan, Kevin Durant, Spencer Dinwiddie, and others. Dapper Labs had previously raised $11.4 million in 2020, with participation from a16z, Animoca Brands, and others.

It's worth mentioning that the lead investor, Coatue, founded in 1999 and headquartered in New York, has grown its assets under management from $45 million to $19 billion over the past 20 years. It has long bet on the TMT (Telecommunications, Media, Technology) sector, with its top ten holdings all belonging to the internet technology field. Its investment philosophy has always been to only invest in "leading" companies in a given field. Therefore, its leading investment in Dapper Labs indirectly shows its view that Dapper Labs is number one in the NFT space.

Indeed, besides owning CryptoKitties, the once-explosively popular game that clogged Ethereum, and NBA Top Shot, which ignited enthusiasm in the sports world from February to March this year, Dapper Labs also built Flow, a public chain specifically created for NFTs and games, and plans to launch an NFT marketplace platform called "Genies Marketplace" in partnership with virtual avatar technology company Genies on Flow in Q3 this year, aiming to become the Amazon for metaverse wearable NFTs. In May this year, Genies secured $65 million in Series B funding led by Bond Capital, with participation from Dapper Labs, Polychain, Hashkey, and others. Additionally, Dapper Labs has invested in NFT social media platform Nifty's, NFT music platform NFT Genius, art hardware startup Infinite Objects, Flow-based NFT trading platform Tibles, and others.

In the previous section, we mentioned one of Dapper Labs' participants, Animoca Brands. As a blockchain gaming and NFT developer, Animoca Brands has made 45 investments in 3 years, becoming an invisible king in chain games and NFTs. It is also one of the four companies to receive over $100 million in funding since the beginning of the year.

Animoca Brands was originally a well-known mobile game developer focused on adapting works for iOS and Google Play, holding development rights for major IP comics including Doraemon, Ultraman, Astro Boy, Garfield, and others. After entering blockchain in 2017, its portfolio includes popular titles like The Sandbox, F1® Delta Time, MotoGP Ignition, and others. In 《奥运会来啦! 当体育碰上��块链, 会产生什么样的火花》, we mentioned that on June 3, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced new Olympic-themed digital entertainment products, including NFT Olympic badges, giving collectors a dream-fulfilling opportunity. The IOC's partner for this was n Way, a subsidiary of Animoca Brands.

On July 1, Animoca Brands announced securing $50 million in funding, with support from Blue Pool Capital and Samsung Ventures, among others. Blue Pool Capital is the family wealth management fund for Jack Ma and Joe Tsai, managing part of Ma's wealth and the majority of Tsai's $8 billion wealth. Their investment in Animoca Brands was their second publicly disclosed investment event after 3 years, and also their first foray into blockchain investment.

Previously, on May 13, Animoca Brands completed over $88.88 million in financing, bringing its post-money valuation to $1 billion. Investors included Kingsway Capital, Axia8 Ventures, Hashkey Fintech Investment, and others. With just these two funding rounds, Animoca Brands raised $139 million.

In Animoca Brands' investment portfolio, there are many well-known NFT projects, such as Axie Infinity and its gaming community Yield Guild Games, WAX, Dapper Labs, Decentraland, Mintbase, Alien Worlds, Super Farm, NFTfi, and others.

Besides OpenSea, Dapper Labs, and Animoca Brands reaching $100 million+ in funding, since the beginning of the year, another blockchain gaming company called Forte raised $185 million at a $1 billion valuation on May 22. This round was led by Griffin Gaming Partners, with participation from a16z, Battery Ventures, and others.

According to incomplete statistics, more than 60 projects in the NFT industry have secured funding this year, but timing has been more concentrated from April to August. Investment sectors include infrastructure, trading platforms, gaming, sports, art, music, and others, primarily focused on gaming, trading platforms, art, and collectibles.

In the gaming sector, for example, Zed Run, which ranks 8th in historical total trading volume on NFT data website CryptoSlam, announced completing $20 million in financing on July 21; Axie Infinity's gaming community Yield Guild Games secured $4 million in Series A funding on June 16 from BITKRAFT Ventures, Animoca Brands, and others; Mythical Games completed $75 million in Series B funding on June 10 led by WestCap, with participation from Galaxy Digital and others.

Additionally, on May 12, two heavyweight gaming projects announced completing financing. The first was Big Time Studios, created by the former CEO of Decentraland, which secured $21 million in funding with participation from DCG, OKX Blockdream Ventures, and others. The other was the recently explosive Axie Infinity, which raised $7.5 million led by Libertus Capital, with participation from Blocktower Capital and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, among others.

Besides NFT gaming, trading platforms are also a sector favored by VCs. Besides OpenSea, the top NFT trading platform mentioned earlier, MakersPlace, Rarible, Mintable, Bitski, Zora, Mynft, and others all secured funding ranging from $1.75 million to $30 million during this period.

In gaming and trading platform investments, we've spotted two top VCs and one NFT enthusiast. One of them is Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). a16z is a Silicon Valley venture capital firm founded by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. Since its inception, a16z has successfully invested in star companies like Facebook, Twitter, Skype, Airbnb, and others, earning it mythical status in the investment world. In the crypto space, a16z continues its legendary performance, having invested in Ethereum, Anchorage, Filecoin, Areweave, Ripple, Celo, Compound, Maker, dYdX, and others, mostly in infrastructure and future financial services. By 2018, a16z began investing in application projects, starting with Dapper Labs. To date, it has also invested in NFT projects including OpenSea, Zed Run, Bitski, Forte, RTFKT, and others. Additionally, on April 3 this year, a16z launched NFT Canon, an NFT content integration platform aimed at helping artists, creators, developers, companies, institutions, communities, and other organizations understand and use NFTs.

The other well-known investment company is DCG (Digital Currency Group). As the parent company of Grayscale, one of the world's largest cryptocurrency investment funds, DCG has invested in over 180 projects and was named one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential Companies of 2021. In the NFT space, DCG has invested in Dapper Labs, Decentraland, gaming company Big Time Studios, decentralized artist DAO and NFT marketplace Wilder World, and others. Grayscale launched a Decentraland (MANA) trust product on March 17.

As for the NFT enthusiast, it's none other than Dallas Mavericks owner and billionaire Mark Cuban. Believing in the broad prospects of NFTs, Mark Cuban, besides purchasing crypto art, stating that next season may issue NFT tickets, and building an NFT digital art gallery Lazy.com, also actively participates in NFT investments. His invested projects—Mintable, SuperRare, OpenSea, CryptoSlam, Sky Mavis (Axie Infinity's development company)—are all well-known NFT projects in the industry.

As of August 10, CoinGecko data shows that the total market capitalization of the NFT market was $21.599 billion. Compared to the $4.98 billion total market capitalization we listed in our March 4 article "NFT Enters Data Surge Period, Is an NFT Bull Market Coming?", this represents a 334% increase over 5 months.

Recently, NFT trading volume has also reached a peak. Nonfungible data shows that in the past 7 days (as of August 9), NFT trading volume was $317 million, nearly 10 times higher than the 7-day trading volume on July 9. The number of user addresses on OpenSea, the top NFT trading platform, surpassed 200,000, hitting a historic high. Its single-day trading volume on August 9 was nearly $79 million, also setting a new record.

As everyone knows, capital entry is the best market indicator. The investment and financing situation since the beginning of this year, especially during April to August, with major VCs accelerating their NFT布局, directly reflects industry hotspots. As one of blockchain's implementation directions, NFTs are considered digital value carriers for knowledge, copyright, creativity, culture, and more. Their emergence not only provides new solutions for traditional fields but also, when combined with decentralized finance, constructs new economic models, giving them both strong money-making ability and sustainable development potential.

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