Yuga Labs Raises $450M to Build ‘Otherside’

Bored Ape Yacht Club creator raises $450 million to build an NFT metaverse [The Verge]

Yuga Labs, owner of the largest three NFT brands, has raised $450M at a $4B valuation to build out its metaverse concept, Otherside.

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 Verge]

A Promethean Moment

The difficulty with new concepts, especially in the metaverse space, is that they start out looking like toys. I can understand the market for MMORPGs. Many people like playing those kinds of games currently. I can understand the market for NFTs. People have always wanted to form social groups that share a culture and aesthetic. I can look to games like Fortnite to see how large these concepts can become (Fortnite booked $5.4 billion of revenue for Epic Games in 2018, its first year on the market). But how do these proven concepts come together in something new that people like and creates economic value? It’s hard to tell.

That’s the thing about the current state of the metaverse. It looks like a toy. Even the word metaverse may need some rebranding after Facebook (er, Meta) dumped all of its corporate baggage onto the term last year.

Can Yuga make inroads where The Sandbox and Decentraland could not? We’ll all have to find out together when Otherside launches in April.