Rarible, an NFT marketplace, has secured $14.2 million in a Series A investment headed by venture capital firms CoinFund and Venrock, with participation from venture and advisory firm 01 Advisors.
In conjunction with the announcement, the platform also stated that it would build a marketplace on the Flow blockchain to mainstream NFTs. NBA Top Shot, a prominent NFT basketball platform, is likewise powered by Flow.
According to Alexander Salnikov, co-founder of Rarible, the marketplace intends to collaborate with several low-cost and environmentally friendly blockchains.
Salnikov stated in a statement, “Flow has a wonderful track record of turning NFTs mainstream through the provision of relatable experiences for non-crypto audiences.”
“Through environmental-friendly minting, scalability, and low-cost transactions, Flow as a blockchain provides faster access and reduces the entry barrier for companies and consumers. We see Flow as an ideal partner for this adventure as we approach the next chapter, pursuing further pioneering the broad use of NFTs.”
The Series A cash, according to Salnikov, will be used to hire more people and continue to grow the marketplace. In particular, the Rarible team intends to use a layer two solution to reduce gas costs, making it easy for any digital artist to access the area and sell their work. The team also intends to improve the consumer experience by allowing consumers to do transactions using a debit or credit card.
Finally, the company is developing a decentralized protocol that will be administered by its own DAO, which will “put decision-making power in the hands of our community,” according to the team.
With the NFT boom earlier this year, the Rarible marketplace, which began in 2020, saw a large surge in trading activity. However, it ran into some complications with user authentication, and some artists complained that previously verified individuals with big followings were using wash-trading for gaming the market.
Following the reports, the marketplace implemented buyer and seller penalties to prevent wash trading, and the Rarible team stated that it had expanded its reporting options for “pointless transactions.”
While there has been a drop in NFT transactions overall, Salnikov believes the enthusiasm surrounding digital collectibles isn’t waning.
“Even during the height of all the excitement and publicity surrounding NFTs, less than 1% of the world was in the market — and that is still true today,” he said.
“NFTs provide such a valuable service to artists by granting them digital rights to their work, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon – in fact, I expect more and more creators will take advantage of this, and NFT adoption will continue to rise,” he added.