Today Digital art collective UnicornDAO announced that it had raised of $4.5 million led by ConsenSys Mesh which is Bored Ape Yacht Club creators Yuga Labs, and others. The funds will go toward empowering artists who identify as women and LGBTQ-led non-fungible token (NFT) initiatives, with members from every corner of the NFT market coming together to participate in the round.

The members in the funding round were MoonPay, World of Women, Tribute Labs, Quantum, Flamingo DAO, The LAO, Wave Financial, Collab Currency, Polygon, and Big Sky Partners, including digital artist Mike Winkelmann (better known as Beeple) and recording artist Sia.

According to a press release UnicornDAO has invested $1.4 million in NFT artworks from underrepresented groups in Web3.

In a statement Nicole Muniz, CEO at Yuga Labs said "We are happy to support UnicornDAO's mission to fund businesses and purchase NFTs created by women and LGBTQ+ people to help onboard new creators to Web3,”. Further added, the Yuga Labs team will donate a seat in the UnicornDAO to an LGBTQ+ or woman leader in the space who may not be able to afford the costs.

In an interview Tolokonnikova confirmed that currently they are focussing on supporting Web 3 artists. In future they have plans to work with more traditional art forms as well. During the last year of his crypto journey, he met all of their curators personally. Pussy Riot's ethos has been to bring equality and joy to underrepresented groups for over 10 years. According to the press release it is expected that to advancing the DAO’s efforts members of UnicornDAO are expected to contribute both their capital and time with initial investors being granted board seats.

On Sunday recording artist Grimes announced that she had joined the UnicornDAO board and donated the video for "New Gods" to the DAO. This week general public applications to join the UnicornDAO as member are now open. On June 21 at the DAO’s event at NFT.NYC more information will be announced. As part of Tolokonnikova's activism, UnicornDAO also announced UnicornRiot, an activist group focused on fundraising and organizing for reproductive rights in the United States.

Decentralized autonomous organizations, or DAOs, are online communities with a common goal using a common treasury, smart contracts (programs that execute when criteria are met), and tokens to vote on proposals.

About UnicornDAO :

In March 2022 UnicornDAO was launched by Nadya Tolokonnikova, a social activist and founding member of the Russian art collective Pussy Riot. Most recently Tolokonnikova who has been an activist in the art world for over a decade got involved with UkraineDAO in a project that sold an NFT of the Ukrainian flag for $6.75 million to raise money for Ukraine’s war efforts against Russia in March. According to UnicornDAO, it is a feminist movement that consists of Web3 natives who are creating much-needed equality in the Web3 space by utilizing Web3-based tools. John Caldwell and Rebecca Lamis are also there along.

NFT personalities Beeple and Gary Vaynerchuk are prominent members of the DAO, with investment from NFT collections World of Women and Moonbirds, crypto trading app MoonPay, blockchain network Polygon and Yuga Labs, the creators of Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs.

Indrani Bose

CBW - External Analyst

INDIA