NBA Top Shot Development Firm Dapper Labs Gets $305M in Funding

Dapper Labs, the developing team behind the popular NBA Top Shot just completed a funding round of around $305 million which was led by investment companies like Coatue and also included former NBA basketball player Michael Jordan and current ones like Kevin Durant, Alex Caruso, Klay Thompson, and Andre Iguodala plus a host of others. This current round of funding places the valuation of the firm at around at $2.6 billion.

Dapper Labs’ NBA Top Shot was one of the first NFT tokens to garner wide attention this year. The platform has been able to record close to $500 million in sales and its secondary trading market is now over $2 million in volume daily. The asset, developed in conjunction with the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association allows fans of the game to collect and trade “moments.” Moments are licensed basketball highlight clips.

With this round of funding, the firm would be able to expand its Top Shot token to other sports. The firm had earlier spoken of its desire to spread to other sports apart from basketball, specifically mentioning its intention to develop collectibles for UFC.

According to the CEO of Dapper Labs, Roham Gharegozlou, the NFT tokens give fans of the sport a new and “exciting way to connect with their favorite teams and players.” He also added that they “ want to bring the same magic to other sports leagues as well as help other entertainment studios and independent creators find their own approaches in exploring open platforms.”

Notably, the firm is also the brain behind the popular collectible game called CryptoKitties and also has its own blockchain system called Flow.

The craze for NFTs has increased exponentially in recent times as we have seen different digital arts sold for millions of dollars. We have also witnessed the entrance of musical artists like Lupe Fiasco, Snoop Dogg and a host of others in the field.