Zora Labs secured 50 million dollars from the first funding round, bringing its value to 600 million dollars. The round was led by Haun Ventures, Katie Hun’s new investment firm. In addition to Haun Ventures, Coinbase Ventures and Kindred Ventures also participated in the round. Haun led OpenSea’s B series while she was at a16z, earning a position on the board.
Zora’s purpose is to enable artists and developers to create markets and NFT collections. Zora has its own primary market where users can register NFTs, similar to OpenSea, but the vast majority of NFTs sold by Zora take place on third-party websites.
Cryptocurrency organizations, such as the publishing Startup Mirror and the collective FWB, have leveraged Zora’s protocol to sell NFTs to community members.