VeeFriends raises $50M from a16z

VeeFriends, the massively popular NFT project from Gary Vaynerchuk (aka Gary Vee), famous internet personality and CEO of Vayner Media, closed $50M in seed funding this week led by top venture capital firm a16z. VeeFriends has quickly become one of the top NFT communities, and has built on that success better than most competitors. Holders of the NFTs have access to an annual multi day conference called VeeCon thrown by Gary Vee, and individual access directly with Vaynerchuk depending on what token you have.

On top of this success, VeeFriends has been rolling out physical games, layer 2 games, collectibles, events, etc. VeeFriends has brought in over 200,000 ETH since its inception in May 2021, and sits in OpenSea’s top 30 all time projects by Ethereum transaction volume. The first VeeCon saw some 7000 attendees show up for a week of events. The VeeFriends blog explained a bit of what they plan to do with the new funding:

“VeeFriends will use the capital injection to support building the future intellectual property of the 283 VeeFriends characters. The investment will be used to fuel expansion plans for its creative, technical and experiential operations. VeeFriends is building its IP across different multimedia platforms including physical and digital spaces. We are also planning on using proceeds to recruit the best talent from the entertainment and Web3 industries.”

As far as the actual artwork goes… Well, this one really isn’t about the artwork.

VeeCon 2022 in May had speakers such as Snoop Dog, Beeple, Pplpleaser, Steve Aoki, Mila Kunis, Kevin Smith, and about a hundred more people across business, art, culture, and web3.