Doodles Raises $54m, Teases Upcoming Music NFT
After a quiet couple of months, Doodles announced this morning that it has raised $54 million in a capital round led by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, according to a Forbes report. With this investment, Doodles is now valued at $704 million, despite the project's floor price falling from an all-time high of 25.5 ETH in May to 7.1 ETH prior to the announcement.
The project had been criticized of late after going a month and a half without tweeting prior to today's news. The last Doodles announcement came in June, when singer Pharrell Williams was introduced as the team's chief brand officer.
Doodles CEO Julian Hoquin had this to say about some of the initiatives the project is pursuing: "We're very keen on actually developing other people's opportunities to utilize their characters in their own commercial efforts. It just needs to be controlled." Hoquin added that Doodles is positioned to introduce people to Web3 through music NFTs moving forward: "We want to create products for our core collector base, but at the same time utilize these great forms of marketing like music to introduce new people to Web3 and onboard them into the Doodles ecosystem."
The Forbes article notes Doodles will soon release an NFT project in collaboration with Columbia Records within the next six months, though the team declined to provide further information beyond noting there will be a song involved "that would get radio play and streaming exposure, but have an underlying adaptation experience for NFT holders."
A Twitter thread from @doodles this morning added: "We are using the funding to rapidly acquire a world-class team of engineers, creatives, marketers and business executives. As well as to fund product development, acquisitions, proprietary technology, media, and collector experiences." The team will look to fill 18 new full-time positions across all areas from finance to marketing to engineering and introduced Brandon Rosenblatt as the team's new Head of Brand Partnerships.
In the first ~20 minutes following the announcement, the Doodles floor price has already risen from 7.1 ETH to 8.19 ETH.
