Crypto firm MoonPay raises $87m from Justin Bieber, Maria Sharapova, others
Cryptocurrency payments startup MoonPay has raised $87 million from more than 60 high-profile investors including singer Justin Bieber, rapper Snoop Dogg, tennis player Maria Sharapova and actor Bruce Willis as the role of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in content creation and fan engagement expands.
The investments are part of the firm's Series A round, disclosed in November last year which valued the company at $3.4 billion, MoonPay said on Wednesday.
More than 600 crypto startups have seen over $12.5 billion in venture capital funding so far this year, according to Alex McDougall, managing director at fund manager 3iQ Digital Assets.
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MoonPay, which provides payment infrastructure for crypto and NFT transactions, expects content creators to increasingly use NFTs to market their work and engage with fans, chief executive officer Ivan Soto-Wright said.
NFT is a type of crypto asset that uses blockchain technology to record who owns a digital file, which could be an image, a video or a text.
Other investors in the company include rapper Aubrey Drake Graham and Adel Future Nur's company Dreamcrew, Gwyneth Paltrow-led Kinship Ventures, Ashton Kutcher, Guy Oseary-backed venture capital firm Sound Ventures, singer Abel Tesfaye, better known as The Weeknd and his manager Amir Esmailian.
