Justin Bieber, Maria Sharapova, Bruce Willis invest in Crypto firm MoonPay

livemint.com:

Crypto startup MoonPay on Wednesday announced that it has raised $87 million from more than 60 high-profile investors including singer Justin Bieber, rapper Snoop Dogg, tennis player Maria Sharapova and actor Bruce Willis as the role of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in content creation and fan engagement expands, according to Reuters report. The investments are part of the firm's Series A round, disclosed in November last year which valued the company at $3.4 billion, MoonPay said on Wednesday.

"NFTs and Web3 technology will revolutionize the business of entertainment," said Michael Ovitz, co-founder at CAA, and former President at The Walt Disney Company. “Consumers are seeking new ways to consume entertainment and engage with their favorite creators — and the creators themselves want different ways of owning and sharing their creative output. MoonPay is helping to power that change as it lowers the barrier of entry to the crypto economy, and I’m excited to join them on that journey," as per MoonPay release.

It is worth noting that NFT is a type of crypto asset that uses blockchain technology to record who owns a digital file, which could be an image, a video or a text.

Over 600 crypto startups have seen over $12.5 billion in venture capital funding so far this year, according to Alex McDougall, managing director at fund manager 3iQ Digital Assets.

MoonPay, which provides payment infrastructure for crypto and NFT transactions, expects content creators to increasingly use NFTs to market their work and engage with fans, chief executive officer Ivan Soto-Wright said.

Other investors in the company include rapper Aubrey Drake Graham and Adel Future Nur's company Dreamcrew, Gwyneth Paltrow-led Kinship Ventures, Ashton Kutcher,