This Beverly Hills Startup Just Raised Millions to Help Brands Mint NFTs
Harri is dot.LA's senior finance reporter. She previously worked for Gizmodo, Fast Company, VentureBeat and Flipboard. Find her on Twitter and send tips on L.A. startups and venture capital to harrison@dot.la.
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A new blockchain startup called NFT Brands has unveiled a $3.6 million seed funding round today as it barrels into the $40 billion-plus market for non-fungible tokens.
The Beverly Hills-based company is aiming to launch “multimillion-dollar NFT projects” for brands and celebrities, according to founder and CEO Noah Loul. NFT Brands closed the seed round in under two weeks, Loul said, and is now turning its attention to a targeted $35 million Series A round that is slated to open to investors today.
“A day [in the blockchain and NFT market] is like a month in traditional industries,” Loul told dot.LA. “It moves at lightspeed. It’s a rocket, and we’re just adding the fuel to it right now.”
Loul declined to identify the investors involved in the seed round. A regulatory filing indicates that four investors participated in the funding.
NFT Brands pitches itself as handling the entire NFT creation process for brands and “elite figures,” from the design process to public relations and community management. The agency-like concept is a “fully-integrated development company,” in Loul’s words, that covers NFT production costs upfront; in exchange, NFT Brands typically receives about a 30% cut of the proceeds.
Loul said NFT Brands already has “$154 million [in NFT deals] in our pipeline with some of the largest brands,” though he declined to share names.
These days, numerous startups are raising millions off the hype that surrounds NFTs, not to mention cryptocurrencies and the wider blockchain-related phenomenon known as Web3. Los Angeles has quickly established itself as an epicenter for entertainment-related ventures that are helping music artists, athletes and celebrities get into the NFT game.
Earlier this month, Santa Monica-based venture capital firm M13 closed a new $400 million fund that it said will deploy Web3 technology as an overarching investment thesis.
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Harri is dot.LA's senior finance reporter. She previously worked for Gizmodo, Fast Company, VentureBeat and Flipboard. Find her on Twitter and send tips on L.A. startups and venture capital to harrison@dot.la.
