Crypto payment company MoonPay raised $87 million from A-list celebrities as part of its Series A round.
MoonPay assembled an all-star line-up of celebrity investors as it raised $86.7 million as part of its Series A round. The crypto payment company saw more than 60 investors from the entertainment, music, and sports industry chip in. Among them are high-profile names like Maria Sharapova, Brucie Willis, Justin Bieber, Steve Aoki, Snoop Dogg, Eva Longoria, Ashton Kutcher, and Gwyneth Paltrow.
The raise added to the $555 million the company already raised at the end of 2021, putting its valuation at $3.4 billion. As a payment infrastructure company for cryptocurrencies and NFTs, MoonPay claims to have over ten million users across 160 countries. Put simply, MoonPay allows you to buy cryptocurrency with a credit or debit card through its payment integration.
Celebrities unsurprisingly jumped at this opportunity, as many of them may have had contact with MoonPay during the height of the Bored Apes celebrity frenzy. MoonPay processes credit card transactions on OpenSea and it is thus easy to see how celebrities noted the company's real-world utility. Gwyneth Paltrow, one of the investors in this round, said:
"Web3 is inspiring the entertainment industry, and commerce in general, to reimagine the way we create community, connect with fans, build value and manage intellectual property."
And Steve Aoki chipped in:
"It won't be enough to release new [NFT] drops and hope it works; you've got to be way more participatory. Web3 makes that possible."
During its November raise, the startup received funding from firms like Blossom Capital, Thrive Capital, Paradigm, and NEA. In the first three months of 2022, more than 600 crypto startups have received over $12.5 billion in venture capital funding.
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