Yuga Labs, the creator of the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT, has announced it is raising $450 million at a $4 billion valuation. The NFT company said the funds would be used to scale its team and operations, which it confirmed includes a new metaverse project called Otherside.
The metaverse project, Otherside, will integrate avatars from a number of NFT projects, including BAYC. Earlier this week, Yuga Labs tweeted a teaser that a metaverse project powered by its new ape-themed crypto coin, Ape Coin was in the works.
Among the investors are Andreessen Horowitz along with gaming studio Animoca Brands and cryptofirms FTX which are both already associated with YugaLabs.
CEO Nicole Muniz said that Yuga Labs is partnering with a few different game studios to bring Otherside into fruition. She added that the Metaverse would be open to everyone, not just BAYC owners. There was no timeline for launching the ambitious project or the play-to-earn game that Yuga Labs has planned for later this year.
A16z’s crypto division lead, Chris Dixon, commented that Yuga Labs and other emerging Web3 companies are an essential counterweight to centralized tech giants like Meta.
The team describes its metaverse project, called Otherside, as an MMORPG meant to connect the broader NFT universe. They hope to create “an interoperable world” that is “gamified” and “completely decentralized,” says Wylie Aronow, a co-founder of Bored Ape Yacht Club who goes by the pseudonym Gordon Goner. “We think the real Ready Player One experience will be player run.”
The announcement comes just weeks after Yuga Labs made a major move to consolidate the NFT space, acquiring CryptoPunks and Meebits from Larva Labs. The acquisition put three of the most lucrative NFT collections under one roof — and gave Yuga Labs a bigger roster of IP to pull from when crafting its game and metaverse plans. The company also launched a cryptocurrency, ApeCoin, last week; the token will be governed independently and used as the primary currency in Yuga Labs’ properties.
Yuga Labs is partnering with “a few different game studios” to bring Otherside to life, says CEO Nicole Muniz. The game won’t be limited to Bored Ape holders, and the company plans to create development tools that allow NFTs from other projects to work inside their world. “We’re opening the door to effectively a walled garden and saying ‘Everybody’s welcome.’”
