Share this article
NBA's Spencer Dinwiddie, Andre Iguodala and More Join Dapper Labs $12M Funding Round
Dapper Labs raised $12 million in its newest funding round led by NBA stars Spencer Dinwiddie, Andre Iguodala, JaVale McGee, Aaron Gordon and Garrett Temple.
Updated Sep 14, 2021, 9:40 a.m. Published Aug 6, 2020, 1:00 p.m.
Make us preferred on Google
Dapper Labs has closed a $12 million funding round led by National Basketball Association (NBA) stars Spencer Dinwiddie, Andre Iguodala, JaVale McGee, Aaron Gordon and Garrett Temple, according to a press release shared with CoinDesk.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
The funds will be used for further development of blockchain games including the eventual launch of NBA Top Shot out of private beta, Dapper Labs founder and CEO Roham Gharegozlou told CoinDesk in a phone interview.
“Sports are our most important vertical now,” Gharegozlou said.
NBA Top Shot runs on the developer’s custom Flow blockchain. The firm pivoted off the Ethereum blockchain due to scalability concerns following the 2017 CryptoKitties debacle.
Read more: The Team Behind CryptoKitties Is One Step Closer to Leaving Ethereum
The round was also joined by new venture capital firms such as Coinbase Ventures and existing partners Union Square Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) Cultural Leadership Fund – the offshoot’s first investment – among others.
Dapper Labs has raised $51 million to date in seven rounds, according to Crunchbase.
NBA Top Shot
As first reported by The Block, NBA Top Shot broke $1.2 million in revenue three months after Beta trial launch. The app allows basketball fans to purchase officially licensed digital tokens of NBA player rosters similar to a trading-card game.
“Flow can create the vehicle for consumers to enter the space through products like NBA Top Shot where they have fun, but at the same time create a new self-sovereignty,” Dinwiddie said in a statement.
Read more: CryptoKitties Creator Debuts NBA Game on Its Own Blockchain
NBA players like Dinwiddie and McGee are not unfamiliar with cryptocurrency investments. Dinwiddie experimented with tokenizing his NBA contract on the Ethereum blockchain while McGee was an early investor in bitcoin, according to Gharegozlou.
Iguodala has found some success as a fintech investor as well; he recognized Zoom’s potential long before it became a pandemic business staple.
“Blockchain technology has the potential to revolutionize consumer ownership on the internet,” Iguodala said in a statement. “Projects like Dapper Labs’ Flow are already driving consumer adoption, with NBA Top Shot proving the experience is not only engaging, but smooth and fan-friendly.”
More For You
KuCoin captured a record share of centralised exchange volume in 2025, with more than $1.25tn traded as its volumes grew faster than the wider crypto market.
What to know:
- KuCoin recorded over $1.25 trillion in total trading volume in 2025, equivalent to an average of roughly $114 billion per month, marking its strongest year on record.
- This performance translated into an all-time high share of centralised exchange volume, as KuCoin’s activity expanded faster than aggregate CEX volumes, which slowed during periods of lower market volatility.
- Spot and derivatives volumes were evenly split, each exceeding $500 billion for the year, signalling broad-based usage rather than reliance on a single product line.
- Altcoins accounted for the majority of trading activity, reinforcing KuCoin’s role as a primary liquidity venue beyond BTC and ETH at a time when majors saw more muted turnover.
- Even as overall crypto volumes softened mid-year, KuCoin maintained elevated baseline activity, indicating structurally higher user engagement rather than short-lived volume spikes.
More For You
Solana’s new phase is ‘much more about finance,’ says Backpack CEO Armani Ferrante
The Solana ecosystem has spent the past year doubling down on a financial infrastructure, Backpack CEO Armani Ferrante told CoinDesk.
What to know:
- Solana’s latest phase looks a lot less flashy than its memecoin-fueled highs, and that may be the goal.
- Armani Ferrante, CEO of crypto exchange Backpack, told CoinDesk in an interview the Solana ecosystem has spent the past year doubling down on a more sober focus: financial infrastructure. A
- fter years of experimentation as the wider crypto industry focused on NFTs, games and social tokens, attention is now shifting back toward decentralized finance, trading and payments.
Top Stories
