Congratulations to Doodles in their new funding that has seen the NFT project reach over $704M valuation.
The NFT market is not what it was in the latter half of 2021. During that time almost any and all projects were able to make waves and garner major attention. Some of those projects went on to become what are called “blue chip” projects, basically projects that have amassed a lot of hype, fame, and money. Other NFT projects were not so lucky having been lost to the wind or becoming complete rug pulls – whereas some players in the sphere used the hype to create projects that looked interesting only to in the end run off with the funds never to be seen again.
With so many rug pulls and scams in the NFT sphere the sentiment towards NFTs has gone sour with the market not doing anywhere as well as it did during that time period of last year. The bear market has not done the NFT market any favors either. There are still new projects being consistently pushed but the best projects are those that spawn from already successful projects.
One of the past projects still thriving even through this bear market is Doodles. The collection is a PFP collection of 10,000. The art is composed of cute characters with many different visual traits all designed by artist Burnt Toast. The Doodles are hand-drawn and they include skellys, cats, aliens, apes, and mascots. There are also rare heads, costumes and color ways.
Doodles #9812 being sold for 55.55 ETH or $93,046.25
Doodles has a universe that has been continuously built upon and recently the “Space Doodles” collection has been built with Doodles 2 well underway by the developers. The collection is available on the secondary market with a floor price of 9.1 ETH which is about $15,075 or the price of a small car.
The current collective value of the original collection is valued at over $704 million now thanks to a recent raising of $54 million during a financial round.
One of the rarest Doodles with very rare gold coloring.
The new capital influx will be used to expand the project into music and gaming, two areas that are of growing interest when it comes to NFTs.
The team at Doodles has been hard at work building upon the platform they created during the height of the NFT “gold rush.” The trading volume of the collection may have gone down 6.41% as of recent sales reports, ( as did many other collections) but other collections have been hit even harder with projects such as Bored Apres seeing a 40% drop in value and CryptoPunks being hit with a whopping 77% drop in sales.
Doodles was able to continue on its mission and build upon the community in a way that pushed it to build its own brand. The company was able to raise the $54 million of equity funding that was backed by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian’s 776 company. The funding round was joined by Acrew Capital, FTX Ventures, and 10T Holdings.
Ohanian’s founding partner Katelin Holloway is a board member for Doodles and states she was drawn to the company due to its diverse community. Doodles CEO Julian Hoguin stated that Holloway’s HR executive expertise will be beneficial in the growth of the company internally and externally.
“Having her as a sounding board and as a true partner is going to be invaluable because we want to be built on culture, we want to elicit joy and creativity.”
The Doodles community has its own share of celebrity holders in Steve Aoki, Justin Bieber, and Gary Vee and shows no signs of slowing down. The team is dedicated to work with collectors and has allowed them to commercialize their NFTs for up to $100K before needing a licensing agreement.
In June the company brought Pharrell Williams in as Chief Brand officer which opened the door to different application of the technology including music NFTs. The music NFT project will be released in partnership with Columbia Records within the next six months.
Space Doodles is the gaming arm of the company and new users will be able to purchase characters and animations with credit cards instead of crypto in the future.
The bear market has stunted the growth of many projects and some other projects have gone the way of the dinosaur, Doodles has proven that with consistent strategy and a bold brand even a bear market is no threat.
