NFT development studio Mojito announced Friday that they have raised $20M in seed funding from a number of investors, including internationally known auction house Sotheby’s.
According to an announcement published in Forbes, Sothebys auction house in partnership with Future Perfect Ventures, Creative Artists Agency and NEAs Connect Ventures, contributed to the round at Mojitos estimated value of $100 Million.
The Delaware-based start-up indicated that it will use this new injection of capital to grow and develop its engineering teams, make a better version of its current NFT platform, and further develop its NFT trading and investment platforms.
The NFT market has seen its total monthly sales drop from early September, though numbers have held at between $1.8 and $2.1 Billion for the last month according to nonfungible.com. The NFT markets total monthly sales hit an all-time high of $3.7 Billion on Sept. 4 after a steady rise in late July. $31 million of the current total NFT market sales comes from the sale of art-based assets.
Digital art marketplaces such as OpenSea achieved prominence during this timeas well, reportedly hosting 98 percent of the markets transactions through August of 2021.
Art dealers and museums have taken notice, and are beginning to follow suit as they follow the money apparent in this new market. Both Sothebys and Christies auction houses have had a number of successful NFT auctions in the past year. Christies was the first of the two to host a global auction of an NFT.
Mojito previously aided Sothebys in the development of its new digital NFT marketplace, known as Metaverse.
Businessman and TV personality Kevin OLeary, a one-time vocal opponent to cryptocurrency-based investments, recently stated his belief that the NFT market would become bigger than Bitcoin during an interview on the Pomp podcast.
