Michael Jordan, Will Smith join $305M funding round for NBA top-scorer maker Dapper Labs

NBA top scorer maker Dapper Labs has secured about $305 million in new funding from investors.

According to a report from Business Insider on Tuesday, past and present NBA stars such as Michael Jordan, Alex Caruso and Kevin Durant participated in the round. Other investors included the Chernin Group and Will Smith's venture capital firm Dreamers VC.

With the latest funding round, Dapper Labs is reportedly valued at $2.6 billion. As Cointelegraph previously reported, NBA Top Shot had gross sales of $230 million as of the end of February.

According to Business Insider, citing a Dapper Labs spokesperson, transaction data in March showed that NBA Top Shot's total revenue reached US$483 million, with more than 802,000 users on the platform.

Indeed, the NBA Top Shot craze is part of the current buzz surrounding non-fungible tokens (NFTs). In early March, an NFT collector reportedly rejected a $1 million offer to acquire an NBA Top Shot NFT for $100,000 in January.

Commenting on the platform’s success, Roham Gharegozlou, CEO of Dapper Labs, said:

“NBA Top Shot is successful because it inspires basketball fans and is a new and more exciting way for people to connect with their favorite teams and players.”

Following the success of NBA Top Shot, Gharegozlou said Dapper Labs hopes to expand the "same magic" to other sports franchises. Back in February 2020, Dapper Labs inked a deal with mixed martial arts promoter Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).

Dapper Labs also created CryptoKitties, one of the first NFT projects to gain widespread traction in the crypto space. During the peak of the CryptoKitties craze, the digital cat breeding game became the largest Ethereum-based decentralized application.

Meanwhile, NFTs appear to be becoming more mainstream, with Saturday Night Live recently presenting a rap sketch explaining the new digital collectible phenomenon with a typically sarcastic tone.