Dapper Labs acquires Brud, to launch new DAO-focused division
Dapper Labs, the company behind the popular NFT marketplace ‘NBA Top Shot’, announced on the 4th that it has acquired ‘Brud’, an IT startup that digitally renders social media influencer characters.
As part of its new project, Dapper Labs will launch a new division called ‘Dapper Collectives’, a department specializing in autonomous decentralized organizations (DAOs). The mission is to make DAOs more user-friendly and accessible to anyone via its Flow Blockchain.
Dapper Labs has not revealed the amount paid in acquisition.
Brud is a startup that has developed digital characters and is well known for creating the character “Lil Miquela”. Lil Miquela is a virtual influencer with over 3 million followers on Instagram.
Since its founding in 2016, Brud had successfully raised more than $27 million and had been funded by venture capital firms such as Sequoia and Spark Capital.
Dapper’s announcement read:
“We’ve been following Trevor [McFedries], Nicole de Ayora (CPO), and Kara Weber (COO)’s work on virtual influencers and the Metaverse since before CryptoKitties — it’s an honor to work together today.
We’ve also been impressed with Trevor’s work more generally in the decentralized ecosystem, including cofounding the $FWB DAO on Ethereum.”
Brud Co-founder and CEO Trevor McFedries, who will lead the new DAO-focused division, also founded DAO ‘Friends With Benefits (FWB)’ built on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain.
According to its website, Friends With Benefits “aims to take these new tools and help implement web3 in a multitude of ways.” $FWB, the DAO’s native token, has almost $77 million in market capitalization.
Dapper Labs will bring Brud’s 32-person team aboard, making up the core of the new unit.
Dapper Labs CEO Roham Gharegozlou told crypto news website Decrypt:
“The space of DAOs is probably the most interesting space to us after NFTs and very complementary to the work we’re doing, both with big brands as well as our own IP. Trevor and his team are the best in the business.”
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