Quick take:
- Tom Brady’s celebrity NFT platform Autograph raised $170M.
- The funding round was led by Silicon Valley venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz “a16z” and Kleiner Perkins.
- Autograph is an agency that connects athletes and entertainers to the exciting world of NFTs.
Tom Brady’s celebrity-focused NFT platform Autograph has completed a $170 million Series B capital raise. The funding round was led by top Silicon Valley venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz “a16z” and Kleiner Perkins.
Autograph is an agency platform that connects athletes and entertainers to the new exciting world of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Autograph’s latest funding round also attracted investors from Katie Haun’s new fund and Lightspeed. Cryptocurrency venture capitalists backing the platform are trying to bring celebrities and their fans to the world of digital collectibles.
The platform completed its Series A funding round last July, with 01A and Velvet Sea Ventures leading. The Series B funding will see three more members, including Haun, a16z’s Arianna Simpson and Kleiner Perkins’s Ilya Fushman, join Autograph’s start-studded board.
Other celebrity figures already on the board include co-founder Brady, Eddy Cue from Apple, Sam Bankman-Fried from Bahamian-based crypto exchange platform FTX, and artist Abel Tesfaye.
Autograph seeks to bring celebrity NFT drops into one place after several entertainers and artists dropped their unique digital collections last year. Some were deemed to have been successful drops while others received mixed reactions.
Paris Hilton’s three collections “Hummingbird in my metaverse”, “Legend of love” and “Iconic Crypto Queen” were some of the most successful projects launched last year, while Steve Aoki, Mike Tyson, and Snoop Dogg also made exciting debuts in digital collectibles.
However, Lindsay Lohan’s Friends of the Cartel NFT caused a stir in the NFT community, while Quentin Tarantino faced lawsuits over his NFT offerings, which included ‘Pulp Fiction Friction’.
Autograph’s NFT platform already hosts some of the leading celebrities’ artworks and collections including, Tiger Woods, Simone Biles, Derek Jeter, Naomi Osaka, and Usain Bolt.
The platform has created a curated marketplace where celebrities can gain exposure to NFTs and other digital offerings without crossing the tricky legal framework surrounding the industry.
Recently, Kim Kardashian and Floyd Mayweather were named in a lawsuit brought by feisty investors for their involvement in promoting EthereumMax token that reportedly turned out to be a scam.
Autograph, which also partnered with online gaming company DraftKings, is based on the proof-of-stake Polygon blockchain, a layer 2 scaling protocol built on the Ethereum network.
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