In an upcoming Series A investment round, the Los Angeles-based company Chiru Labs, which is behind the creation of the highly anticipated Azuki NFT collection, intends to raise at least $30 million. Three individuals acquainted with the fundraising drive confirmed the target amount. According to one of these sources, the majority of the funds have already been committed, and the valuation of Chiru would be anywhere between $300 million and $400 million if the round were to be successfully completed.
A fourth individual, who is familiar with the deal, advised that the particulars have not yet been ironed out, but that this will happen very shortly. Chiru and Zagabond, the pseudonymous founder of the venture, did not respond to calls for comment. It is essential to keep in mind that Azuki was among the most exciting NFT projects of 2022 until it was derailed in the middle of its flight due to the error of a company executive. Instead of competing with Bored Ape Yacht Club, the “skaters of the Internet” tumbled off their skateboards and sprawled on their faces.
Rise In NFT Project Investments
The announcement comes less than a week after another NFT project, Doodles, raised $54 million at a valuation of $704 million in a round led by Alexis Ohanian, the co-founder of Reddit and an avid NFT aficionado. Proof Collective, the company that is behind Moonbirds, completed a funding round on August 30 that was worth $50 million and was led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). Following in the footsteps of the developers of Bored Ape Yacht Club, Azuki, Doodles, and Moonbirds follow in the footsteps of Yuga Labs, which in March secured $450 million in a round led by a16z, valuing the business at an astounding $4 billion.
The Azuki NFTs are a collection of sideways-facing anime characters that range in the 10,000 level. They are depicted in a variety of different emotions and are equipped with various accoutrements such as hats and weapons. A particularly uncommon component of the collection was purchased for 420 ETH, which was equivalent to more than $1 million at the time of the transaction almost six months ago. According to data provided by OpenSea, the least expensive Azukis are currently valued at 11.2 ETH (about $14,000).
The collection is a favorite among the crypto industry’s most prominent figures. The founder of the Web3 investing firm DeFiance Capital, Arthur Cheong, uses a picture of a very rare Azuki as his profile picture on Twitter. The Hong Kong real estate magnate and millionaire Adrian Cheng, who has just bought 101 Azuki NFTs, has the same opinion. According to reports, Cheng is in the process of raising $500 million to invest in the cryptocurrency market.
The Rise And Fall Of Azuki
The emergence of Azuki, on the other hand, has not been without its share of incidents. In May, the company’s founder, Zagabond, released a blog post in which they clearly explained the specifics of three unsuccessful NFT projects they had worked on and eventually abandoned prior to beginning work on Azuki. In the same period of time, the average price of an Azuki dropped from more than 30 ETH to 10 ETH, and it has not yet recovered from this drop.
The overall NFT market has been experiencing difficulty during the past few months. According to the data, art and collectibles NFTs have not been able to post weekly sales of more than $100 million since May. A single week’s worth of sales of the same kind of NFTs generated close to $1 billion in revenue in August of the previous year.
The ray of hope in this story is that Azuki’s fall can be used to educate NFT collectors on a crucial lesson: every reputation-based initiative, even the most prospective, is one naïve error away from slipping into oblivion. It is not yet the end of Azuki’s journey, and collectors may very well be witness to a redemption arc; yet, the ancient saying that reputation is like a house of cards in that it takes a long time to create but can be destroyed in an instant still holds true today.
