• The fund is the largest joint commitment made toward any blockchain ecosystem, according to the company
  • The Flow blockchain has more than 7,000 developers

Dapper Labs, the Web3 platform powering blockchain-based trading card platform NBA Top Shot, unveiled a $725 million ecosystem fund in a bid to spur community growth. 

The fund is the largest joint commitment made toward any blockchain ecosystem, the company said in a statement Tuesday. Participants include venture capital firm a16z, Coatue, CoinFund, Greenfield One, Liberty City Ventures, Digital Currency Group and Union Square Ventures.

“As [Web3] accelerates and sophisticated app developers search for the best platforms, Flow is perhaps the best decentralized blockchain built for the scale, security, and ease of use most modern startups need to succeed,” CoinFund Managing Partner David Pakman said in a statement. 

The fund will offer existing and future developers support to build applications on Flow blockchain through investments and FLOW token grants. It will focus on support for gaming, infrastructure, decentralized finance, content and creators, and the capital may also be used for team expansion, user acquisition and general operating expenses. 

A spokesperson for the company did not immediately return a request for comment. 

Originally developed by Dapper Labs, Flow is a blockchain built for consumers that has had daily transactions triple since September 2021, according to the company.

Flow has more than 7,000 developers building on the blockchain. The protocol has roughly 1,000 active projects and 175,000 monthly active users. The Web3 platform powers NBA Top Shot, which allows users to own, sell and trade NFTs of NBA and WNBA plays and players, as well as NFL All Day, which offers licensed NFL video NFTs (non-fungible tokens).

FLOW has a market capitalization of roughly $1.5 billion, according to Blockworks data. The price was up 8.2% to trade at $3.999 in the last 24 hours as of midday Tuesday. 

Dapper Labs closed a $250 million round in September, which the company said would be used to support additional brand-driven sports-, entertainment- and music-based products. Coatue and a16z had invested then, as well.

The investment is the latest in a string of digital asset investments for a16z, which recently launched a crypto research lab. The firm was one of 18 investors backing Elon Musk’s $44 billion bid to purchase Twitter, pledging $400 million. It also led a $25 million seed round to fund the launch of the NFT-focused Co:Create protocol.

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  • Ben Strack is a Denver-based reporter covering macro and crypto-native funds, financial advisors, structured products, and the integration of digital assets and decentralized finance (DeFi) into traditional finance. Prior to joining Blockworks, he covered the asset management industry for Fund Intelligence and was a reporter and editor for various local newspapers on Long Island. He graduated from the University of Maryland with a degree in journalism. Contact Ben via email at [email protected]