Top celebrities and musicians under the name Sound Ventures have set aside $1 million as the prize for the winner of the “most innovative NFT project” that will last for a week. The venture launched on Monday, April 5, has thrown the offer open to intending participants worldwide to present their NFT work to an eight-member panel of judges before April 12, the closing date for submission.

The description of the contest states that the project can be a simple idea or an entire product that is available on the market. The statement also added that the competition winners would be given a slot to work with Sound Ventures for as long as they wish. It says, “All applicants should be prepared to establish a company for a long-term deal.”

The winners are not bound to accept the investment. Also, the venture has not set any terms and conditions regarding the distribution of the investment. A look at the competition’s FAQ shows that the size and terms and conditions of the investment will depend on the company. It is, however, unclear the number of pitches to be shortlisted for the final round of the contest. But one can infer from the contest page that more than a million dollars will be invested across the board.

Mark Cuban, Snoop Dogg, among the six judges

The panel of judges will include Ashton Kutcher and Guy Oseary, who are co-founders of Sound Ventures. They will sit along with six other judges, including the wealthy Mark Cuban, the rapper Snoop Dogg, Lina Xie, the Whale Shark, and Metakovan. The last two judges (Whale Shark and Metakovan) may not be as famous as the rest; they are among the prominent personalities in the NFT community.

Not long ago, the Whale Shark, which has a market capitalization of $23 million, tokenized a vault comprising some NFT collectibles to enable investors to stake in it. Metakovan, also known as Vignesh Sundaresan is a famous NFT buyer who won Beeple’s recent $69 million Christie’s auction last month.

Founder has been previously embroiled in a scandal

Popular actor Ashton Kutcher and talent manager Guy Osary, who are co-founders of Sound Ventures are the personalities that set up the competition. U2 and Modonna are Oseary clients. They also manage a venture capital firm known as A-Grade Investments, a company noted for funding big projects. Some of the initiatives it has funded are Airbnb, Foursquare Shazam, SounCCloud, Uber, Spotify, and others.

As for Ashton Kutcher, he has been involved in a controversial auction deal when he auctioned off a digital version of a notebook scribble in August last year. He destroyed the copy’s original drawing to demons trade that digital is far better than physical artworks. At the same time, he intended to use the money to support ecological conservation. He sold the artwork, called “The Eye of The Beholder,” for 20 ETH, an equivalent of $42,600 at the time of writing this report.