VeeFriends Raises $50M in Seed Funding Led by a16z

Gary Vaynerchuk’s NFT empire is expanding. VeeFriends raised $50 million in a seed round led by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z).

VeeFriends will use the capital injection to support building the future intellectual property of the 283 VeeFriends characters.

The investment will be used to fuel expansion plans for its creative, technical and experiential operations, according to an official announcement.

VeeFriends is building its IP across different multimedia platforms including physical and digital spaces.

“Not only is VeeFriends an exciting NFT project, it also provides offline and in-person utility through curated experiences like VeeCon, which brought over 7,000 NFT ticket holders together for a week of informative conversations on web3, live music, and networking," said Chris Lyons, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz. "VeeFriends represents the ethos of entrepreneurship, and we’re humbled by the opportunity to support Gary and the VeeFriends community on this journey.”

The company also says it is planning on using proceeds to recruit the best talent from the entertainment and Web3 industries.

Since launch on May 11th of 2021, has amassed approximately more than 200,000 ETH in primary and secondary sales, has released more than 10 collaborations and has built one of the largest communities on Discord for an NFT project.

About a16z crypto

a16z crypto is a fund led by Andreessen Horowitz that backs bold entrepreneurs building the next internet. With more than $7.6 billion raised across four funds, the a16z crypto fund invests in web3 companies and protocols from early seed-stage projects to fully-developed networks. Its crypto-native team supports founders and the growth of web3 through its research organization, engineering and security teams, legal and regulatory teams, go-to-market expertise, recruiting services, educational content, and more.