Quick take:
- JoePegs has announced a $5 million funding round co-led by Avalanche Foundation and FTX Ventures.
- The fundraising was completed in June long before FTX collapsed.
- JoePegs has grown to become the largest NFT marketplace in Avalanche.
JoePegs has raised $5 million in a round co-led by Avalanche Foundation and FTX Ventures. The fundraising closed in June and the funds were transferred from FTX accounts long before the bankruptcy.
FTX and its associated businesses (FTX US and Alameda Research) filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy last week after Binance pulled out of a potential acquisition citing a hole in the defunct crypto exchange company’s books.
However, while FTX goes under, some of its investments will continue to benefit from financing received before the advent of recent events. JoePegs has emerged as one of the companies that FTX Ventures, the investment arm of FTX, invested in.
In a statement announcing fundraising, the JoePegs founders going by pseudonyms, Cryptofish and 0xMurloc said: “The funding from FTX Ventures was completed in June, and have since been transferred out of FTX prior to recent bankruptcy events.”
JoePegs has grown to become the largest non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace on Avalanche with more than $3.4 million in secondary sales volume and 12,000 users.
The founders have also developed an in-house production unit, Joe Studios and an NFT launchpad, that already boasts 50 projects.
“As we started building this, we realized very quickly that in order to deliver a platform that really helps users discover great NFTs we have to invest in a lot more platform capabilities so that’s what the fundraise will go toward,” 0xMurloc said. “On top of that, we also create a lot of content on our end. We did this at the start to fill a need. Marketplaces are only as good as the content in the ecosystem.”
An NFT is a blockchain-based digital file that represents proof of ownership of a digital collectible, artwork, a music track, virtual merchandise or a video clip.
JoePegs is focused on the operational side of the market, partnering with traders, artists and projects across the Avalanche ecosystem. Avalanche has grown to become the seventh-largest NFT marketplace by sales volume of more than $400 million according to CruptoSlam data.
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