Chronicle has announced it has successfully secured $3.2 million in seed funding to develop its fan-focused NFT platform for digital collectibles. 4SV, AU21 Capital, Aussie Capital, and Bella Protocol are just a few of the many investors who participated in the round, which closed oversubscribed. Chronicle plans to pursue an “NFTs-as-a-Service” strategy that will enable brands to mint digital collectibles and fans to trade them without having any prior experience of blockchain or cryptocurrencies.
NFTs have undoubtedly been big news this year. Together with the price of Bitcoin, NFTs have put crypto firmly into the mainstream spotlight, thanks to NFT drops from stars such as Damian Hirst, Snoop Dogg, Lindsay (NYSE:LNN) Lohan, and Eminem, among others. In the first quarter of 2021, there were $2 billion NFT sales, with more buyers than sellers.
As such, the market for NFTs has boomed, with a surge of interest from outside the cryptocurrency community and many new NFT marketplaces springing up on various platforms.
However, Chronicle points out that the NFT space suffers from many of the legacy UX issues in the cryptocurrency space. Many of these are unassailable – buying NFTs still requires users to purchase crypto on an exchange, set up a wallet, pay significant fees (at least in the case of Ethereum assets,) and generally overcome a substantial knowledge gap.
The project aims to overcome these challenges with a user interface that offers an easy and familiar sign-up process using an email address, along with USD onboarding. They can then purchase licensed digital collectibles and store them in their own wallet assigned to them in the Chronicle platform. The overriding goal is that any user or fan should be able to join Chronicle even if they have no prior knowledge or experience of using blockchain or crypto. Effectively, it aims to do for NFTs what Coinbase has done for crypto.
The platform aims to support NFT digital collectibles across various industries, including film and TV, sports, music, games, celebrities, and more.
Accelerating the Journey to Launch
Now, the project has gained the first round of funding necessary to accelerate bringing its fan-centric platform to launch. Funds will also be used to build an in-house studio with top artists who will design the collectibles available on the Chronicle platform. Finally, the project also plans to expand geographically to include footprints in Los Angeles, Australia, Singapore, and Beijing.
Chronicle was co-founded by Tim Glover and Jim Jin. Tim Glover was previously a viral marketing and franchise consultant, creating digital content for Universal and Amblin’s Jurassic World franchise. Jim Jin is a long-time investor in blockchain projects, including Thorchain.
In a press release accompanying the funding news, Mr. Glover expressed his belief that the Hollywood merchandising model can be brought to NFTs, stating: “We are building something that we know works for entertainment brands and their fans, ultimately making digital collectibles available to millions of fans worldwide.”
This article was first published on coinquora.com