In MoonPay’s recent funding round, celebrities from the worlds of music, sports, and entertainment backed the crypto firm with hefty investments.
According to Independent, 60 stars including rappers Snoop Dogg and Drake participated in a whopping $87 million raise for the Miami-based firm. Fellow investors also included Justin Bieber, Jason Derulo, Questlove, Gwyneth Paltrow, and more.
The announcement follows MoonPay’s $555 million round — bringing its valuation to $3.4 billion.
The outlet discloses that many of celebrities involved already had familiarity with cryptocurrency.
“Hollywood is using smart contracts and blockchain technology to assert their creative intellectual property rights,” said Ivan Soto-Wright, CEO and co-founder of MoonPay, according to Independent.
He added: “Major global sports franchises have used digital tokens and NFT collectibles to transform fan engagement. And recording artists are beginning to explore how NFTs can give them more control over royalty rights. These are the underpinnings of a creator economy renaissance.”
With its past two funding rounds bringing in millions as well as reportedly having more than 10 million customers worldwide, MoonPay leads as “one of the most valuable crypto companies in the US.”
Snoop Dogg And Drake's Previous Interest In Crypto
As previously reported by AfroTech, Snoop Dogg has made previous investments into the space including in Yuga Labs’ $450 million seed funding round in March. With Drake, he’s shown great interest in Bitcoin from putting Kodak Black on to the popular cryptocurrency to using it to make his million dollar Super Bowl bet.
“Drake and I do a lot behind the scenes talking and s—t,” Kodak Black said on The Breakfast Club, according to AfroTech. “I ain’t tell nobody this, but the other week that n—a sent me a quarter-million dollars, for no reason. Me and my brother Lance, we in the car and this n—a text me like, ‘You got Bitcoin?’ I was like, ‘Nah.’ He was like, ‘Set up a Bitcoin wallet.’ So I’m putting two and two together, that’s four! S—t, and then over time, those coins got up to like 40 bands a coin. So then that s—t came in and it’s really like $300,000 in my Bitcoin wallet right now.”
