Silver Lake Leads $150M Round in NFT Platform Genies

The investment values the avatar company at $1 billion.

Apr 12, 2022 at 1:11 p.m. UTC

Updated Apr 12, 2022 at 5:27 p.m. UTC

Camomile Shumba is a CoinDesk regulatory reporter based in the UK. She previously worked as an intern for Business Insider and Bloomberg News. She does not currently hold value in any digital currencies or projects.

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Genies, a non-fungible token (NFT) platform, raised $150 million in its recent funding round led by private equity firm Silver Lake to further its Web 3 ambitions. The New York Times DealBook first reported the news.

The U.S.-based company's latest funding round values it at $1 billion, the company said Tuesday. This investment will help support it as it provides tools to create and sell characters online.
"Sometimes it's a small company like this, and other times it's huge, large companies that need to be transformed," Egon Durban, the co-chief executive of Silver Lake, told DealBook.
In May last year, Genies raised a $65 million round led by Mary Meeker's Bond Capital with participation from Dapper Labs, Polychain, Coinbase Ventures, Hashkey and others.
In December, the company partnered with the Universal Music Group, enabling Universal's musicians to create digital versions of themselves.
Genies and Silver Lake were not immediately available for comment when contacted by CoinDesk.

UPDATE (April 12, 14:19 UTC): Changes headline, adds link to press release.

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