Pantera Capital, one of the first venture capital firms to specialise on crypto, has invested $10 million in Rarify, a new NFT startup with a $100 million value. Rarify’s approach is more transparent than a token-based members’ club, which Pantera appreciates. Rather, it intends to provide software to large corporations that facilitates the creation and sale of NFTs.
“Checking out on OpenSea, the largest NFT exchange at the moment, is a 14-step process. What if we could reduce the procedure from 14 steps to three,” says Revas Tsivtsivadze, cofounder. Rarify also believes that in the future, it will be able to develop investing software to assess the investment worth of NFTs, which are still a volatile and unregulated asset class.
Revas Tsivtsivadze worked at Shutterstock for five years, gaining the attention of the company’s millionaire creator, Jon Oringer, by the time he left in 2021. Shutterstock has agreed to test Rarify’s technology, and Oringer sent Tsivtsivadze the first check for Rarify, which was part of a $3 million seed round led by Greycroft and Einac Ventures last year. Four of Rarify’s 14 employees, including the chief technology officer and engineering director, are said to be still in Ukraine, where they were living prior to the Russian invasion. Georgians Tsivtsivadze and Lasha Antadze co-founded the company. Antadze had also lived in Ukraine till he flew out a few weeks ago.
“As the fight has proceeded in recent days, it has been possible to retain touch with them, although difficult at times. They are in Kyiv and Kharkiv, two of Ukraine’s largest cities,” according to Antadze.
Source: Smart Liquidity
