On March 28, the non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace Blur announced the company has raised $11 million in a seed round led by Paradigm. The NFT marketplace Blur says the startup is focused on building an institutional-grade NFT market that’s made “for pro traders.”
Blur raises $11 million to manufacture the startup’s institutional-grade products
Marketplace NFT Blur reported that the company raised $11 million in a seed funding round led by Paradigm. According to Blur, the round also saw participation from Egirl Capital, Keyboard Monkey, Ledgerstatus, 0xmaki, Santiago Santos, Zeneca, Deeze and Andy (Fractional).
Blur explains that the marketplace will be crafted for pro traders and the startup believes that most offerings today are focused on retail traders. “Current NFT marketplaces prioritize the retail experience, but they neglect the growing needs of pro traders,” Blur’s announcement on Monday details. “Infrastructure has failed to keep up as monthly trading volumes hit billions, and Web2 business models hold the space back with poorly aligned incentives.” The startup’s blog post adds:
Our mission is to solve these problems and move the NFT space towards institutional quality while increasing decentralization.
At the moment, Blur is building the market in stealth mode the company disclosed and the team will share information on how to get early access in the future. The project has a Twitter account with roughly 2,400 followers and statements from a few investors like Deeze are highlighted on the project’s Twitter profile. “Excited to be a part of this round,” the investor Deeze tweeted on Monday. Sicarious from Sicarious Capital explained that trader looked forward to helping Blur.
“As a trader with a soft spot for NFTs, I am very happy to help the [Blur team] make their idea a reality”, Sicarious Explain to the merchant’s 100,000 Twitter followers. “I can’t wait to try their beta, I’ll see if I can get away with some leaks.”
Blur’s announcement on Monday stresses that the mission to bolster the NFT space “will not be an easy feat.” However, Blur concludes by highlighting that the project has “assembled a team of builders with experience from MIT, Five Rings, Brex, Square, and Y Combinator to accomplish this mission.”
A number of NFT projects and marketplaces have raised funds this year. For example, Immutable raised $200 million in a Temasek-led Series C in the first week of March. In January, analytics firm NFT Cryptoslam raised $9 million from Animoca Brands, Mark Cuban and Sound Ventures. Just last week, on March 22, the creators of the NFT Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) collection raised $450 million in a funding round. After the capital injection, Yuga Labs is now valued at around $4 billion.
