Ornella Hernandez

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 <ul>
 <li>Co:Create is a B2B-facing entity that advises Web3 brands</li>
 <li>Other participants in the seed round include VaynerFund, Packy McCormick’s Not Boring Capital, Amy Wu, RTFKT and fractional.art</li>
 </ul>
 
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Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) led a $25 million seed round to fund the launch of Co:Create, a new protocol that intends to support the growth of NFT projects and enable them to launch their own native tokens. VaynerFund, Packy McCormick’s Not Boring Capital, FTX’s head of ventures and gaming Amy Wu, RTFKT and fractional.art participated in the round.



Ever since Yuga Labs’ Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) launched <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/apecoin-in-for-a-volatile-ride-as-exchanges-list-bored-ape-yacht-club-linked-crypto/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Ethereum utility token ApeCoin</a> (APE), the larger Web3 community is seeing the potential of tying a token to the performance of NFTs (non-fungible tokens). ApeCoin is a governance token for the Ape DAO that launched within BAYC’s first year, and was recently <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/solana-and-ethereum-suffer-weekend-disruptions-thanks-to-nft-mints/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">required to participate</a> in a virtual land sale.



Blockworks spoke to Tara Fung, the co-founder and chief executive officer at Co:Create, who said that the trend of native tokens “is here to stay.”



“There&#8217;s a lot of potential that NFTs hold that still needs to be realized. And it&#8217;s indicative of the fact that the space is quite nascent,” Fung said, adding that she hopes Co:Create can “serve as a core component of the tooling and infrastructure layer to support other creators&#8217; visions.”



In addition to providing the tools and infrastructure for Web3 brands to issue native tokens, Co:Create aims to manage and engage communities through decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) while incentivizing the growth of dApp ecosystems around their collections.



According to Fung, Co:Create is about unlocking the potential of NFTs and going beyond drops and sales. Fung is bullish on the power of decentralized governance, citing ApeCoin as an example of a tool that is bringing the BAYC ecosystem to a wider audience through its metaverse and gaming strategies.



In a statement shared with Blockworks, Chris Dixon, general partner at a16z crypto, said the Co:Create protocol “puts creators on the right path to designing and implementing the most challenging components of successful NFT communities.&#8221; He added that the industry is “only beginning to appreciate what a motivated and engaged NFT community is capable of.”



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A16z Leads $25M Raise for NFT-focused Co:Create Protocol

Ben Strack

Macauley Peterson

<div id="highlights-block_61e1a7c79358d" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>“We think games can onboard the next 100 million, even 1 billion people into Web3,” Wu told Blockworks </li>
 <li>FTX is a portfolio company of Lightspeed, which has collaborated on FTX commercial initiatives in the past</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



FTX has launched a $2 billion venture capital fund focused on backing teams building within the digital assets ecosystem as the company is focused on advancing blockchain and Web3 adoption. The crypto derivatives exchange also revealed that Amy Wu, most recently a partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, joined FTX to lead ventures, gaming, M&amp;A and commercial initiatives. 



The fund, FTX Ventures, will invest broadly across crypto and Web3, Wu said, noting that the unit is particularly excited about the number of talented teams in the Web3 gaming space.



Gaming is huge — a $200 billion annual industry in content alone and growing fast,” she told Blockworks.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">“Gamers pioneered the usage of digital assets and now can own them, and we think games can onboard the next 100 million, even 1 billion people into Web3.” </blockquote>



FTX, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Solana Ventures joined forces to create a $100 million Web3 gaming investment initiative, <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/ftx-solana-ventures-and-lightspeed-create-100m-web3-gaming-investment/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">the companies announced</a> in November. 



FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried said during a panel at the <a href="https://www.bloomberglive.com/event/bloomberg-financial-innovation-summit-november-4/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Bloomberg Financial Innovation Summit</a> that month that <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/sam-bankman-fried-gaming-nfts-have-mainstream-potential/">gaming NFTs could be a driving force</a> behind bringing crypto to the mainstream.



At Lightspeed Venture Partners, a $10 billion multi-stage venture fund, Wu led crypto and gaming investments, including <a href="https://lsvp.com/portfolio/ftx/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">the fund&#8217;s investment in FTX</a>.



“Our investors at FTX have made a deep impact in supporting our growth and development,” Bankman-Fried said in a statement. “We strive to do the same at FTX Ventures and are excited to find the brightest minds and disruptive innovation in tech.”



As part of FTX Ventures, Wu will lead a team of eight people, which includes general partner Ramnik Arora and advisor Armani Ferrante.



Arora has worked as FTX’s head of product since October 2020, according to his LinkedIn profile. Ferrante has been a software engineer at Alameda Research since September 2020, a quantitative cryptocurrency trading firm and liquidity provider founded by FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.



Venture money has poured into the crypto space over the last year. An all-time high of $17 billion <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/crypto-venture-funding-is-at-an-all-time-high-this-is-where-the-money-is-going/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">had been invested</a> into crypto projects in the first half of 2021. 



Circle <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/circle-launches-venture-fund/">revealed plans in November</a> to launch a venture fund to invest in early-stage blockchain projects and companies.&nbsp;



Last month, Silvergate Capital and EJF Capital <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/silvergate-and-ejf-launch-joint-venture-fund-to-invest-in-early-stage-companies/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">teamed up</a> to launch a venture fund, and Kraken Ventures <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/kraken-ventures-raises-65m-for-fund-focused-on-crypto-fintech/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">announced its first fund</a> after raising $65 million to invest across crypto and fintech.



FTX has participated in the funding rounds of a variety of crypto startups in recent months, including crypto infrastructure provider <a href="https://medium.com/toruslabs/web3auth-raises-13m-series-a-to-drive-mass-adoption-on-web3-applications-and-wallets-via-simple-948b6008cdb5" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Web3Auth</a> and <a href="https://www.drivewealth.com/news-page/drivewealth-raises-450m-series-d-valuing-the-company-at-2-85b" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">DriveWealth Holdings</a>. 



“Some existing investments from FTX will be folded into the new Venture fund,” Wu said. “At FTX Ventures we’re excited to co-invest with our close partners and investors, so it’ll be a natural way to continue partnering with Lightspeed as well.”



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