Heavyweight Companies Continue to Participate in NFTs

The nonfungible token (NFT) space has gained massive adoption since the start of the year. The space has attracted numerous celebrities, athletes and media companies over the past few months.

Microsoft and Warner Bros Invest in an NFT Startup

NFT startup Palm NFT Studio raised $27 million in a Series B funding round. The latest funding round was led by Microsoft’s M12 venture fund. According to the team, Warner Bros. is another major participant in the round.

The other participants in the funding round include Griffin Gaming Partners, Third Kind Venture Capital, SK Inc., RRE, Sfermion, and The LAO, an investment-focused decentralized autonomous organization (DAO).

The funds will be used to develop further projects on the Palm Protocol, an energy-efficient Ethereum sidechain that has thus far been used for art, entertainment, and sports NFT projects. Palm NFT Studio CEO Dan Heyman stated that “When we went to raise this money, it was important for us to find strategic partners who were philosophically and ideologically aligned with what we’re trying to do here. I couldn’t imagine a better group than we’ve come up with.”

According to Heyman, Microsoft is starting to look beyond private, permissioned blockchain implementation and into broader use cases. He added that “Now they’re trying to push the envelope forward and understand how that private chain experimentation and innovation can translate into other initiatives. We’re very excited that they’ve chosen Palm NFT Studios as their first partner in the public NFT space.”

The NFT Space Continues to Grow

The NFT space has experienced massive growth since the start of 2021. In the third quarter of the year, NFT trading volume surpassed the $10 billion mark for the first time. The entry of big companies into the NFT space is expected to increase the trading volume over the coming months and years.

Cryptocurrency exchanges such as Coinbase, FTX and Binance are already expanding their presence in the NFT space. Earlier this month, FTX.US’s NFT platform announced that it now accepts Ethereum-based NFTs as it was previously focused on Solana-based NFTs.