Where are Steve Aoki and Deadmau5 investing? Vienna’s LimeWire brings home $10 million with token sale

As artists perform for live audiences yet again, positioning NFTs as exclusive backstage passes or access to unreleased content is poised to become an invaluable avenue to strengthen direct engagement and loyalty with fans.

Cashing in on this potential, Vienna-based LimeWire, which announced its re-emergence as a digital collectibles marketplace in March, has raised $10.4 million in a private sale of its LMWR token led by Kraken Ventures, Arrington Capital and GSR.

The round also includes Crypto.com Capital, CMCC Global, Hivemind, Hard Yaka, Red Beard Ventures, FiveT, 720Mau5, the fund behind Canadian music producer Deadmau5, as well as DAO Jones, a group of investors consisting of high-profile members from the music industry, including well-known electronic music artist Steve Aoki.

Going forward, LimeWire will use the funds raised to grow its team, extend partnerships and continue to onboard major music artists onto the platform. Recruitment will be geared largely towards roles that support artists and curate high-quality content on the platform. 

The platform will kick off its official launch campaign later this year and open up its digital collectibles marketplace shortly thereafter. With an initial focus on music collectibles, it is designed to drastically lower barriers of entry into the world of NFTs and make buying, collecting and trading collectibles easy by leveraging credit card payments and an intuitive user experience.

“The support from our investors reinforces the mission at LimeWire to open up the world of NFTs to a mainstream audience, starting with music collectibles,” said brothers Julian and Paul Zehetmayr, LimeWire co-CEOs. “We also expect strong interest in the public token sale later this year. The LMWR token sits at the heart of the LimeWire ecosystem and allows users to actively participate not only in our community but also in what happens on the marketplace.”

Akshi Federici, partner, Kraken Ventures added: “The LimeWire team has developed a platform that's uniquely positioned to increase participation in digital collectibles within the music industry, where many use cases are yet to be discovered.”