NFT infrastructure startup Rarify raises $10 million from Pantera Capital

NFT infrastructure startup Rarify has raised $10 million in Series A funding from Pantera Capital at a $100 million valuation.

The backing from Pantera Capital seems significant, as Pantera Capital is one of the top venture capital firms in the crypto space.

One of Rarify's main products is an application programming interface (API) focused on NFT commerce, which enables companies to launch and integrate user-friendly marketplaces within its platform. The API also allows minting and transferring NFTs between different blockchains.

Rarify co-founder Revas Tsivtsivadze told Forbes on March 3 that the company aims to simplify buying and selling NFTs, similar to how “Square made it super easy to accept payments.”

Tsivtsivadze highlighted the checkout process in marketplaces like OpenSea, which he believes has "something like a 14-step process" that can be reduced to three steps.

The round builds on last year’s $2 million seed round, which included participation from Pareto, Eniac Ventures, and Protocol Labs, among others. The company intends to use the funds to expand its workforce and launch new products with partners.

The company currently offers an NFT embedding service, enabling owners of websites such as blogs or shops to integrate simple NFT buying and selling functions. Rarify is also developing a data API that can track NFTs across multiple blockchains, verify users' NFT profile pictures, and measure the value of specific NFTs.

The confidence shown by the newly formed NFT company comes at a difficult time for the industry. Cointelegraph reported yesterday that the number of independent buyers of NFTs on the secondary market fell by 12% in February, while searches for NFTs on Google have dropped by around 60-70% since late January.

However, this may be a short-lived turn in the market, as the focus has recently shifted to the use case of cryptocurrencies related to the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Rarify is also directly hampered by this situation. Tsivtsivadze told Forbes that four of its 14 employees are currently in Ukraine, including the head of engineering and the chief technology officer.

He said they were located in "two hotspots" in Kiev and Kharkiv, but were in constant communication with them.