Adreessen Horowitz (a16z), a venture capital firm, announced that it is heading a massive $50 million seed round for Gary Vaynerchuk’s NFT initiative, VeeFriends, signaling a bright spot in a difficult funding environment for firms specializing in digital assets.
VeeFriends was introduced in May 2021 by Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of VaynerMedia.
According to a Medium post, VeeFriends plans to use the seed money to grow its intellectual property (IP) of the 283 VeeFriends characters across physical and digital channels. The platform intends to hire new personnel as well.
General partner at Andreessen Horowitz Chris Lyons tweeted more information on his business’s support of the “developing Web3 company.”
Lyons praised VeeFriends and Vaynerchuk’s “commitment to assisting his community members’ personal improvement,” saying they “reflect the essence of business.”
Each cartoon animal, such as a “wise wasp” and a “generous gerbil,” was hand-drawn by Vaynerchuk in the doodle art style and given a particular human characteristic. A limited edition UNO deck has seventeen of these characters.
Some of those “important traits for mankind,” such as tolerance, patience, and sincerity, were found by Lyons to be motivating to the community.