Pudgy Penguins distanced itself from NFT crash – now it has raised $9 million
Pudgy penguinsone Ethereum The NFT project that surged in the middle of the 2021 bull run and then fell into chaos was bought by a serial entrepreneur about a year ago and given a new lease of life – just as the market collapsed. But the cartoon birds have persevered and now the team has raised funds as their ambitions grow.
Today, Pudgy Penguins announced that it has raised $9 million in seed funding in a round led by early-stage investment firm 1kx, with participation from Big Brain Holdings, Kronos Research, Old Fashion Research, CRIT Ventures and the founders of LayerZero Labs, per the release .
The project was launched in July 2021, just like NFT the market began setting up billions of dollars in trading volume each month, and Pudgy Penguins’ growth was propelled partially forward of a viral story i New York Times.
But the initial buzz didn’t last, and early 2022 was society was in disarray amid the controversy over a co-founder previous Web3 actions and plans by some NFT holders to break out by “wrapping” their penguins as another symbol. Pudgy prices fell sharply amid the drama.
Luca Netz, a serial entrepreneur, bought the project’s IP directly from the founders in April 2022 for $2.5 million, and told Decrypt that Pudgy Penguins didn’t have the millions of dollars worth of funds that some NFT’s projects and startups had knocked during the bull run.
“When we bought it, we had no money in the bank,” he said. – And we knew that.
Netz said the Pudgy Penguins “need a real operator” to steer the ship. Soon after, however, overall NFT sales volume fell amid a crypto market crash, generating fewer royalties from other sales and dampening broader enthusiasm in the space. His team had to be “really scrappy” to develop the project under these conditions.
Many NFT projects have lost significant value over the past year. The Bored Ape Yacht Clubdropped out, for example a top starting price of around $429,000 (152 ETH) at the end of April 2022 at a current price of $82,600 (45 ETH). But Pudgy Penguins has bucked this trend, rising from $4,365 (1.55 ETH) to $8,170 (4.44 ETH) in the same time frame.
Amid the market-defying growth, Pudgy Penguins has launched physical toy projects and other merchandise and built an advisory board with executives from Meta and Hasbro. The project recently said that it signed with major Hollywood talent agency WME to pursue media projects and beyond, and it has generated worth around 250 million dollars of total trading volume to date.
And while these moves have set Pudgy Penguins up to explore mainstream plans, the project has also grown among NFT die-hards, no doubt helped in part by being one of the rare profile picture (PFP) projects that have actually gained value amid a wider free fall.
From his point of view, Netz said he understands what users want from the project. The first NFT he ever bought was a Pudgy Penguin, and he told me so Decrypt that he then proceeded to trade millions of dollars worth of NFTs after that.
Netz later bought the Pudgy IP thinking it had all the pieces to run both a Web3 community and mainstream extensions ranging from products to entertainment media. It is family-friendly and inclusive, he said, with a fervent community of NFT holders behind it.
Many NFT projects talk about creating big IP – for Netz, achieving this goal will mean ensuring that Pudgy Penguins has broad “influence”. Pudgy Penguins has received over 3 billion views on their official GIFs and tens of millions of Instagram views, and now its seed funding and apparent WME deal could help it reach an even wider audience.
“I see Pudgy Penguin as an influencer,” Netz said. “This character is transcendent in its ability to get where we want it to be.”
