Bored Apes May Be in Talks with Andreessen Horowitz

The creators of the Bored Apes Yach Club NFT collection may be in funding talks with venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz (a16z).

Yuga Labs, the creative start-up behind the BAYC, is potentially seeking a valuation of up to $5 billion, the Financial Times reports.

According to anonymous insiders, Yuga Labs is raising funds from venture capital companies. Andreessen Horowitz is among the Silicon Valley big names exploring the possibility of making a multi-million investment into the NFT creators.

The talks could lead to Yuga Labs issuing tokens for new investors and existing holders of Bored Apes Yacht Club NFTs, sources claim. However, as they later added, investment talks could break down, and the funding deal will not necessarily be closed.  

The involved parties have not released any official confirmations as of yet, however, if the rumors are to be believed, it would represent the first institutional investment into the start-up behind one of the largest and most popular non-fungible token (NFT) collections.

A few weeks ago venture capital titan, a16z, revealed, that it was seeking to raise a fund of around $4.5 billion for new crypto investments. The firm, which has made massive investments into both Coinbase and OpenSea, has plans to own a significant portion of the digital asset world.

BAYC’s Price jumps

The rumors have ignited a rally in the NFT market, resulting in a boost in the price of the Bored Ape Yacht Club of 10% over the past 24 hours. The price of the iconic BAYC now resides at around $273,815 at the time of writing. 

The Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) collection of 10,000 NFTs is the market’s darling for high-profile investors, including celebrities like Eminem, Shaquille O’Neal, Jimmy Fallon, Gwyneth Paltrow and Paris Hilton.