NFT utility platform Tropee raises $5 million led by Tioga Capital: Exclusive
Summary
The startup declined to share its valuation.Startups simplifying the process of minting NFTs have been hot property among investors. Haun Ventures and OpenSea recently backed no-code NFT minting platforms Highlight and Fair.xyz, respectively. Rather than tackling the minting process directly, Tropee is focused on the post-mint experience.While its website indicates the users will need to know their way around a wallet, the startup allows its clients to create experiences around a brands NFTs with relatively little technical experience, said founder Fran\xe7ois Mahl in an interview. "It could be an event, it could be merchandise, a 1 to 1 with a celebrity, an exclusive video, or maybe even an audiobook," he explained.Mahl said that the current post-mint process is complicated and full of holes in terms of user experience, such as a reliance on Google forms and Discord servers.Tropee was founded in May last year by a team of four, including the co-founder of French unicorn Meero, and has helped brands such as G-Star and Christian Lacroix build experiences to create utility for their NFT collections, said Mahl.Tropee is part of a troop of early-stage startups that have raised funding this year that aims to allow users to inject utility into an emerging asset class often associated with financial speculation.This year, Paradigm led a $16 million raise for NFT membership platform Hang, and digital ownership startup Arianee raised $21 million from Tiger Global and French sovereign wealth fund Bpifrance. Last month, Electric Capital led a $4.2 million investment into Lasso Labs, which allows NFT holders to track the utility of their assets.These raises came despite stuttering volumes on marketplaces and similarly suppressed floor prices for popular collections throughout this year.According to The Block Research, while January this year saw volume on popular Ethereum NFT marketplace OpenSea hit close to $5 billion, that figure has trailed off to a mere $326.4 million last month.But Tropees Mahl isnt necessarily worried about the floor price of popular collections tanking.