The fresh capital boosts Doodles’ market valuation up to $704 million as it prepares to launch the next phase of its Web3 brand.
Prominent NFT project Doodles has been quietly building since sharing a trailer for its sophomore NFT collection in June. On Tuesday, even bigger news came: The brand announced in a Twitter thread that it has closed a $54 million Series A fundraising round at a $704 million valuation.
Seven Seven Six, Alexis Ohanian’s venture capital firm, led the funding round, with participation from Acrew Capital, FTX Ventures, and 10T Holdings. Ohanian was an early Doodles collector who later introduced Seven Seven Six founding partner Katelin Holloway to the project. Holloway took charge of leading the deal with Doodles, marking the VC firm’s second investment in the non-fungible token project.
The Web3 media brand announced earlier this summer that it secured an undisclosed amount of funding from Seven Seven Six and welcomed Holloway to its board. At this same time, Doodles named Pharrell Williams its new Chief Branding Officer.
The creators behind Doodles shared on Twitter that the fresh capital will be used to fund product development, acquisitions, media, more experiences for collectors, and proprietary technology. A portion of the funding will also go toward hiring, specifically across Doodles’ engineering, creative, marketing, and C-suite teams.
Doodles is one of those NFT projects that swiftly rose to the top, and has cultivated and maintained a strong community since it first launched — here’s everything you need to know about the growing Web3 brand gearing up for mass expansion.
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Get to Know Doodles
Doodles is a Web3 brand created last year by Jordan “Poopie” Castro, Evan “Tulip” Keast, and Scott “Burnt Toast” Martin (they’re primarily known in the Web3 world by their working aliases).
Doodles NFTs are known for decorating cats, humans, pickles, flowers, and aliens in pastel colors and rainbows. The generative collection draws from 100 traits designed by Burnt Toast that were randomly combined to make 10,000 unique NFTs. Every Doodles NFT is a 1-of-1, with some rare attributes boosting the value of some NFTs in the collection over others.
The project’s inaugural 10,000-piece NFT collection launched on October 17, 2021, with a mint price of 0.123 ETH each.
Doodles’ floor price sits nicely at about $13,100 (8.25 ETH) on OpenSea as of writing this, but NFTs from the popular brand have sold for far more. In January, Doodle #6914 — the rarest of the collection — sold for about $1.1 million (296.69 ETH); avid NFT collector and investor Pranksy made the big purchase.
At the time of this writing, Doodles’ collective market value is about $133 million according to NFT Price Floor.
NFT collectors were both bullish and skeptical about Doodles when the project launched, partly because its Discord server was closed a month before the brand’s initial mint event. To shut out potential supporters was a sign of how exclusive the community was, but early investors were nevertheless rewarded for supporting Doodles. The brand now boasts a community of more than 67,000 followers on Discord.
Doodles NFT holders earn a vote on the community’s features, products, and events. The project is known for primarily sharing updates on Twitter, and has a community treasury governed by the blockchain-powered DoodleDAO, whose membership consists of all Doodle collectors. When key matters come before DoodleDAO, each member holds one vote.
The team behind Doodles has been vocal about expanding into new industries such as music, animation, and gaming. It hit one of those marks with the addition of Pharrell and the launch of Doodles Records. Pharrell is executively producing an NFT-focused album titled Doodles Records: Volume 1 in partnership with Columbia Records.
Maybe the next stage of Space Doodles includes a game?
That would make sense since Doodles announced the second version of its Space Doodles project earlier this summer. Space Doodles are spaceships designed for Doodle NFTs that take holders into the project’s ever-expanding universe (apparently, rainbow puke is part of this experience). Space Doodles NFTs are claimable for free to Doodles holders and are generated from over 200 audio and visual traits equipped with competence stats.
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What’s next?
Doodles shared a trailer in June for Doodles 2, the brand’s second NFT drop. Following this funding raise, it’s clear that the community is ready to see what the project has to offer. During NFT.NYC, the brand said its next NFT collection would not be released on the Ethereum blockchain, but didn’t disclose which blockchain it will shift to.
Plans behind the Doodles Genesis Boxes will be unveiled with Doodles 2. These NFT boxes are the keys to Doodles wearables, including apparel and accessories. The 24,000 NFT boxes can be found on OpenSea.
Back in June, Doodles holders had the opportunity to claim “Dooplicators,” NFTs that act as “super-powered devices,” as defined by the creators. Duplicator NFTs will allow collectors to bring OG traits from Doodles’ inaugural collection to Doodles 2.
One of the most enticing aspects of Doodles’ next phase is letting collectors personalize their NFTs. After minting a base-level NFT from Doodles 2, holders can choose traits like skin tone, hair color, and outfits.
To deliver on all of its plans, Doodles plans on more than doubling its team this year. The company plans to boost its team from 11 employees to 30. Next week, Doodles will open applications to fill roles such as head of finance, social media manager, and head of marketing.
All told, Doodles has a lot cooking. And while no hard dates for its future plans have been set, the speed of their growth gives reason to believe that it won’t be so long before it’s time to mark your calendar again.
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