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Christie's launches venture fund for web3 and blockchain projects

Christie's Ventures will provide seed funding to art-focused blockchain and web3 startups

By Shashank Bhardwaj

Image: Shutterstock

Christie's, a renowned British auction house well-known for Bepple’s artwork ‘Everydays’ sale for $69 million in 2021, has initiated an investment fund to assist companies that aspire to provide technology that will allow "seamless consumption of art."

The auction house announced on Monday that the fund named Christie's Ventures will provide financial aid to firms working on Web3 innovations, technology related to luxury and art goods, and financial products and solutions concerning art. 

On July 18, the Wall Street Journal posted on Twitter, "The entity will aim to supply seed funding to young companies whose technologies could ultimately help collectors buy and sell more art, digital and otherwise."

Christie's said that the first company they will support is LayerZero Labs. It is an enterprise that develops solutions to enable omnichain decentralised applications for a smooth inter-blockchain transfer of assets.

Devang Thakkar, Christie's Ventures global head, said, "We will focus on products and services which can solve real business challenges, improve client experiences and expand growth opportunities, both across the art market directly and for interactions with it.”

In 2021, Christie's auctioned an NFT artwork by Mike Winkelmann, also called Beeple, and raised more than $69 million. The company has also partnered with OpenSea, an online NFT marketplace, and organised on-chain auctions along with multiple other high-profile sales of NFT artwork.

2022 has been a record year for venture funding focused specifically on blockchain technologies. According to Cointelegraph, crypto-related and blockchain-related firms have raised more than $14.8 billion just in the first quarter of the year, which is approximately half of 2021's total. Notwithstanding the bear market and fall in prices of crypto assets, the startups specialising in the Metaverse and Web3 are thriving and earning investors' attention.

Shashank is the founder of yMedia. He ventured into crypto in 2013 and is an ETH maximalist. Twitter: @bhardwajshash 

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