Sotheby’s Dives Deeper into Crypto by Investing $20M in The NFT Studio Mojito

The leading marketplace for art and luxury – Sotheby’s – joined a $20 million seed round investment intended for the NFT tech firm Mojito. The New York-based Future Perfect Ventures, which led the funding round, was another investor in the initiative.

Opening New Doors

According to the Forbes statement, the investment valued Mojito at $100 million. Apart from Sotheby’s and Future Perfect Ventures, it included other participants such as Creative Artists Agency and NEA’s Connect Ventures. Still, as a leader of the funding, Future Perfect Ventures will place Jalak Jobanputra on Mojito’s company board.

The NFT studio plans to utilize the funds to develop its engineering teams and build a better version of its platform. It also aims to tie more partnerships to launch brand-specific non-fungible token marketplaces different from the traditional ones.

It is worth noting that this marks Sotheby’s first investment in a crypto-related company. Charles F. Stewart – Chief Executive Officer at the corporation – pointed out the reasons behind the involvement:

“We believe in the future of using blockchain to expand ownership of digital assets. There is a huge amount of focus and interest in NFTs… Sotheby’s mission is to promote access and ownership of exceptional art and luxury objects, so focusing and developing this area makes a lot of sense.”

This summer, the NFT craze was booming and recorded massive trading volumes. This did not go unnoticed by Sotheby’s, and the company hosted a dedicated online sale of NFTs of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC). Shortly after, the digital collection got sold for a whopping $24.4 million.

Diamond for Crypto

The renowned auction house received popularity among the crypto community with another endeavor recently. In July, it announced the sale of the second-largest pear-shaped diamond ever to be offered publicly at a price of $12 million.

Sotheby’s disclosed that the piece of the “Key 101.38″ passed through chemical analysis and was categorized as a Type IIa diamond, or in simpler terms: “the most chemically pure type of diamond that has exceptional optical transparency.” The firm provided a certificate of authenticity for it.

Interestingly, the anonymous bidder paid for the jewelry using cryptocurrency. Sotheby’s did not disclose the winner’s information, nor which digital asset they used for the transaction.

The choices, however, were not endless since the company enabled only the two largest cryptocurrencies into the offer – bitcoin and ether.

Featured Image Courtesy of Sotheby’s