This is a great season for capital raises from NFT and metaverse companies. From Burnt Finance’s $8 million Series A round on Monday to Metaplex’s $46 million round, investors are splashing million on crypto startups. Tom Brady’s Autograph NFT platform is one of the latest to receive funding from investors, raising $170 million in a Series B round.

Tom Brady, NFT’s star quarterback in 2021 co-founded NFT. Autograph’s popularity has also grown, attracting top athletes and entertainers such as Tiger Woods, The Weeknd, and Simone Biles.

The latest funding round was co-led by Kleiner Perkins and Andreessen Horowitz’s a16z fund. Other investors were 01A, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and a former a16z General Partner, Katie Haun’s VC firm.

Haun will be joining Autograph’s board of advisors as part of the raise. a16z General Partners Chris Dixon and Arianna Simpson, as well as Kleiner Perkins’ Ilya Fushman, will also be coming on board.

Autograph was a pioneer in the NFT industry during the initial NFT boom. In partnership with DraftKings (NASDAQ Marketplace), the platform launched in August. Autograph, unlike OpenSea’s more generic marketplace, has created a unique niche as an athlete-focused platform. You can find digital collectibles of athletes such as Tony Hawk, Usainbolt, Naomi Osaka and Derek Jeter on Autograph.

Although Autograph started in sports, capitalizing on the popularity of Tom Brady, it has gradually expanded into other areas, first with Lionsgate’s “Saw” movie franchise and then onboarding musician Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye to oversee its music vertical.

Brady tweeted about the investment round yesterday, adding that the Autograph is “pumped to add some really knowledgeable people in the Web3 space to our team.”

We have some major news from @Autograph. We’re excited to welcome some Web3 experts to the team. The following thread by @cdixon provides great context about our business. #ToTheMoon