By
Svetlana Soroka
April 25th, 2024
Estonian NFT infrastructure startup NFTPort plans to channel its newly-acquired funding towards scaling its operations in the NFT space.
NFTPort has raised $26 million in a Series A funding round co-led by Taavet+Sten and Atomico. The Estonian NFT startup also secured funding from several other investors, including Sparkle Ventures, Filecoin creator Protocol Labs, Polygon co-founder Jaynti Kanani, IDEO CoLab Ventures, and former Twilio CTO Ott Kaukver. Others include former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan and Polkadot co-founder Jutta Steiner.
Co-lead investor Taavet+Sten is the investment arm of Taavet Hinrikus and Sten Tamkivi, also co-founders of Wise and Teleport. Meanwhile, Atomico is a European venture capital firm headquartered in London with $4 billion in assets under management.
NFTPort Funding Specifics
NFTPort intends to use the new funding to expand to new blockchains, incorporate new functionality, and grow its team. In addition, the Tallinn-based NFT infrastructure startup also seeks to usher in a decentralized NFT infrastructure protocol to the digital assets marketplace. By doing so, the company hopes to empower the next phase of digital ownership.
Pursuant to the funding exercise, Taavet+Sten’s Tamkivi will join the NFTPort team as a co-founder. In addition, former CTO of Bolt, Rain Johanson will become the company’s new CTO.
Tamkivi touched on NFTPort’s grounded plans to “build real tools and applications” for Web3 and all its paraphernalia. According to the Taavet+Sten Partner, “NFTPort’s role is to add meat to [the development of practical Web3-boosting tools], to build the scaffolding in the form of APIs and decentralized protocols for developers to be able to deliver on the promise of a citizen owned internet.”
Atomico partner Irina Haivas spoke on NFTPort’s plan to faciliate NFTs as a new asset class.
“We have high conviction in a shift towards increased digital ownership powered by NFT technology, and the potential for NFTs to become a new asset class. However, a lot of the infrastructure required to underpin the widespread adoption of NFTs and other Web 3 technologies still needs to be built, and this is where NFTPort comes in,” said Haivas.
NFTPort Mode of Operation
NFTPort grants access to three core pillars most companies need to build NFT products. These include data APIs, minting APIs, and user safety APIs. Data APIs provide developer access to various blockchains, while minting APIs facilitate the deployment, management, and customization of fully-owned NFT smart contracts. Minting APIs achieve this without the need to write out smart contract codes or ascertain the complex Web3 stack. Lastly, NFTPort’s user safety APIs use a counterfeit detection engine. The engine helps developers to run background checks on NFT minting history.
In a media session, NFTPort CEO and co-founder Johannes Tammekänd referred to his platform as the “Stripe” for NFTs. Tammekänd also addressed the issue of infrastructure paucity currently plaguing NFT product development, saying:
“One of the core problem companies and developers face in building NFT products is a lack of proper infrastructure. Our infrastructure brings their goods to market down from months to days or even hours and saves them hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
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