21/01/2022 Tom Brady's NFT agency raises $170 million in funding from crypto investors

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Did you know that Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady co-founded an NFT agency? Well he did! It's called Autograph, and you won't be surprised to find out that it's doing pretty well.

The company told TechCrunch on Wednesday that it had just completed its Series B funding round and had raised $170 million from venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz and Kleiner Perkins, among several others. Both firms have been investing in cryptocurrency related projects and Autograph is the latest one.

So what exactly is Autograph? TechCrunch described it as "an agency go-between for celebrity athletes and entertainers looking to find a personal presence in the incredibly noisy NFT world."Some celebrities and athletes have gotten blowback from fans and the public at large over their involvement in cryptocurrency or NFTs, and TechCrunch believes Autograph's goal is to help those people get involved in NFTs in a more "curated" way.

EAST RUTHERFORD, NEW JERSEY - JANUARY 02:  Tom Brady #12 of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers celebrates a successful two-point conversion in the fourth quarter of the game against the New York Jets at MetLife Stadium on January 02, 2022 in East Rutherford, New Jersey. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)

Tom Brady's NFT startup Autograph just raised $170 million in capital. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)

Autograph has an impressive roster of athlete partners. Beyond Brady, they've also partnered with Tiger Woods, Simone Biles, Derek Jeter, Naomi Osaka, Usain Bolt, Wayne Gretzky and Tony Hawk. Brady, the co-founder of Autograph, is on the board of the company, as is Abel Tesfaye, who is more commonly known as The Weeknd.

While Autograph told TechCrunch that it started a partnership with DraftKings over the summer, they are mainly focused on athletes as individuals. Looking at their list of athlete partners, only a few of them play a team sport, and every single one of them has gone beyond their sport and moved into the larger cultural consciousness. Working with athletes who don't just exist in the sports space and who have a broad base of appeal appears to be their strategy.

Arts

https://sports.yahoo.com/tom-bradys-nft-agency-raises-170-million-in-funding-from-crypto-investors-164349652.html

Interesting NFTs
The Scion
A young figure caught in a moment of distraction, aware only ephemerally of his unconscious being, as it engages in psychological and psychedelic layer spaces. His right arm casually cradles a moray eel; the figure is comfortable but not truly aware of the potentials for danger in such negligence. His shirt reads “Bello” in Pokemon style font, harkening back to a childhood straddling the millennial threshold. To his right side, out of the unconscious deep, shrouded alien heads propagate as a fractal totem, each new iteration a more sophisticated rendering of emotional masking over the cold mystery of the greys. As the scion of the Budgie-Sattva, the young man, in his distraction, is also simultaneously aware of higher levels of self discovery. To his left a psychological topology sets beneath the oracle side of an 8 ball ,hovering; its message a purest concept of acceptance. The “Scion” lettering is in 80’s HeMan style bold declaration. The lower right side of the painting is like a hybrid of melon, feathers, and seeds. The crystals in the background bring light; conducted, refracted, reflected, and dispersed, to balance the dark shadow of the figure’s physical body. The aura of the scion succeeds in layers to point, with a finger, and the crown chakra, toward a center of a mandala existing as nigh pure application of strokes, in essence painterly abstraction, but also revealing hints of the Aura of migraine, and the bi-hemispherical nature of the brain–noting concerns of the possibility of inherited mental disease. Yet the flourish of chakra as it sets against that center is robust, active, coherent, and reveling against all fear. Fundamentally, the piece speaks to the activation of one’s potential to begin to “Know Thyself”, and find greater awareness out of the enigmas of the mind–as an inculcated seed given to the rich soil of one’s own birthright.
Fisherman seated on a rock
Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) Fisherman seated on a rock mid-1820s(?) - Japan
Last Selfie #7/10
Was it worth it?
THE SUCCESSOR
Stage 2. The human design process. Merging elements of our current universe with human beings to begin the rebirth of our successor.
Domestic - 2017
“Domestic is the manifestation of the cultural patriarchy in my home. The wooden "woman's" tragedy of false desire. It was done in a moment of breakup. The hollow 3d body & its lost eyes, invites you to fill up. Trying to reach out, encumbered and wrapped in its own fragility, the new mother rises."