Meta4 Capital to invest up to $ 100 million in rare NFTs

Meta4 Capital has created a new fund to invest up to $ 100 million in rare non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

The fund held by minority interests is supported by Andreessen Horowitz, one of Silicon Valley’s largest and most connected venture capital firms. Meta4 Capital is set up by Fund Management, a cryptocurrency-focused investment management firm.

The Miami-based managing partners of Meta4 Capital are Brandon Buchanan and Nabyl Charania. The fund is still raising the remainder of the $ 100 million fund, but it has not specified how much it will be funded by Andreessen Horowitz. The company has some form of engagement for about a quarter of the targeted fund so far, with more closing in the coming months.

The fund said NFTs have become the “most interesting, entertaining and lucrative subsection of the cryptocurrency asset class.” NFTs use the blockchain’s transparent and secure digital ledger to authenticate unique digital items.

The NFT market reached new highs in the third quarter of 2021, with $ 13.2 billion in sales in the first nine months of the year, according to DappRadar. NFTs have exploded into other applications such as art, sports collectibles, and music. Best shot in the NBA (a digital version of collectible basketball cards) is one example.

Posted by Dapper Labs, NBA Top Shot surpassed $ 780 million in sales in just one year. And an NFT digital collage by artist Beeple sold at Christie’s for $ 69.3 million. Investors invest money in NFTs, and some of these investors are game fans. Weekly DTV revenues peaked in May and then collapsed, but in August and September those income rose again, fell, then remained stable. And while critics have said the market will collapse as soon as the hype stops, the percentage increases in NFT’s sales from a year ago are huge.

Major contributors

It might seem crazy for a fund to invest in rare NFTs, which might be overrated and not worth it. But here’s the thing. We don’t really bet against Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz.

Their company’s Andreessen Horowitz vote of confidence could go a long way, as the company has invested in Coinbase, Dapper Labs and AirBnb, among others. The fund will invest in digital art and collectibles (for example, the Bored Ape Yacht Club), game-related NFTs (for example, Zed Run) and purchases related to the Metaverse (for example, virtual lands) .

“NFTs are the driving force behind a new generation of Internet products and services that share value directly among the millions of developers, artists, collectors and even gamers who participate – rather than platforms that simply act. as a middleman, ”Arianna Simpson said. , general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, in a statement. “The Meta4 Capital team has a unique and proven pulse in the NFT market and across the web3 spectrum, and we are delighted to partner with them on this new fund.

Earlier this year, Meta4 Capital launched and deployed its pilot vehicle, Meta4 Capital LLC, with a mandate to purchase digital art and collectibles, purchase virtual land, and trade cryptocurrencies. related to NFT. This vehicle has acquired dozens of non-fungible tokens from various projects including CryptoPunks, Bored Ape Yacht Club, Meebits, Gutter Cat Gang, Zed Run, and Sandbox, among others.

“The Meta4 thesis is built around the transition to Web 3.0 and we believe that NFTs are at the intersection of technology, finance, art and culture,” Buchanan said in a commentary. message to VentureBeat. “We want to give investors a way to participate in this growing asset class and be an example for minorities looking to enter the space as they are under-represented as investors and in the same way as participants of the asset class. “

Meta4 was founded on the belief that NFTs are an example of a smarter Internet, or Web3. Web3 represents how technologies have matured the Web as we know it, as a place of information and connection to decentralized networks with powerful capabilities. One of its guiding technologies is blockchain.

“NFTs are more than pixels. It’s the intersection of culture, technology and finance, ”Buchanan said in a statement. “It represents a new way of thinking about the ways in which ‘value’ is accumulated, exploited and distributed. We are witnessing the disintermediation of intellectual property and the direction the web3 is ultimately taking thanks to blockchain technology.

One of the results, if not the most impressive, of this shift is the move to co-creation, the fund said. This means that content creators have a direct relationship with the consumers of that content and benefit from their content directly, immediately and independently of future ownership of that content, while consumers benefit from an expanded value relationship with the content creator.

“NFTs demonstrate a shift in the flow of value directly to the creator on a scale never seen before,” Charania said in a statement. “On top of that, NFTs allow users to become investor-partners aligned with creators. This is the evolution of the Internet that we have been eagerly awaiting with NFTs marking the dawn of Web 3.0 and the immersive Internet.