Lathrop GPM Business Transactions and IP Groups Close $9 Million Funding Round for Leading NFT Aggregator CryptoSlam
KANSAS CITY (April 4, 2022) — Lathrop GPM recently represented CryptoSlam, a leading aggregator of non-fungible token (NFT) data, in a variety of legal matters, including the closing of an oversubscribed $9 million funding round announced in January.
Founded in 2018, CryptoSlam was the first of its kind in tracking and organizing NFT data across multiple blockchains. Today, CryptoSlam aggregates a growing list of popular blockchains, including Ethereum, Solana, Avalanche, Flow, Polygon and WAX, among many others.
The Lathrop GPM team was an instrumental partner to CryptoSlam founder Randy Wasinger, counseling and organizing him around some of the structural elements that will be essential for his long-term success. This was particularly important given the rapid acceleration of interest from venture capitalists and investors from around the globe over the past 12 months.
“It’s been tremendous to work alongside Randy Wasinger, who has been at the cutting edge of this space since 2018,” said Mark Bluhm, Lathrop GPM partner who led the team counseling CryptoSlam on the financial and IP aspects of the business. “Randy built this company from the ground up, and it’s been remarkable to watch his and CryptoSlam’s trajectory in such a short amount of time. What he has accomplished thus far is really just the tip of the iceberg, and our team is excited to help CryptoSlam flourish in its next chapter as the NFT landscape continues to grow in the years ahead.”
The $9 million funding round that closed in January will be used to support an aggressive hiring plan, expand the development of the CryptoSlam platform for new and existing blockchains, and support the launch of several new products under the CryptoSlam brand. This strategic seed round was led by venture capital firm Animoca Brands, a noted Hong Kong based NFT and metaverse-related company investor. This round also included earlier pre-seed investors Mark Cuban and Sound Ventures, the venture capital firm co-founded by actor Ashton Kutcher and talent manager Guy Oseary. Other notable investors included Binance Smart Chain, the largest exchange in the world in terms of daily trading volume of cryptocurrencies, Stocktwits, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, Zynga founder Mark Pincus, Sebastien Borget, co-founder and chief operating officer of decentralized gaming virtual world, The Sandbox, KCRise Fund, and OK Blockchain Capital, the venture capital fund of OKEx, a global bitcoin/cryptocurrency exchange.
“The investors in CryptoSlam are a veritable who’s-who in the NFT economy,” said Cameron Garrison, Managing Partner of Lathrop GPM. “Our team knew that to attract the type of significant, influential, global investors CryptoSlam sought, the legal aspects of its business practices would need to be incredibly structured and compliant, and it would need to have solid control over its extensive intellectual property. To meet this goal, we called on the experience of many of our talented attorneys across practice groups to dive into this fast-growing segment of the virtual business world.”
In addition to the formation and the fundraising work, Dale Werts and Patti Garringer-Strickland are advising CryptoSlam on the legal aspects of some exciting, proposed new products, and the IP team is assisting CryptoSlam with its growing digital advertising activity. More specifically, Lathrop GPM’s Advertising Law team has advised CryptoSlam in buying, selling, and placing advertisements from companies looking to reach an audience of NFT investors. This additional revenue stream also contributed to CryptoSlam’s substantial growth in recent months.
The full Lathrop GPM team advising CryptoSlam on a variety of matters includes Partners Mark Bluhm, Kyle Hertel, Greg Kuhn, Dan Tenenbaum, Dale Werts; Counsel Patti Garringer-Strickland; Associates Dara Alvarado, Andrew Potter, and Garrett Pratt from the firm’s Business Transactions group; Partner Jennifer Debrow and Associates Emily Holpert and Hannah Lutz from the IP group; as well as Paralegals Anne Grosheitsch, Harlon Keel, Jodi Malecha, and Norine Schmitt.