FinTech news in community category

The company just changed its name to Zealy, which indicates a larger focus beyond web3 companies. Last year, the startup raised $3.5 million in a funding round led by Redalpine. Other investors included Connect Ventures, Aglaé Ventures, Kima Ventures, Purple, STATION F, Founders Future, Pareto Holdings and several business angels from The Sandbox, POAP, DFNS, Starton and Pianity.

Koop also announced today that it is coming out of stealth with $5 million in funding led by 1confirmation and web3 creator economy-focused Variant Fund, with participation from Palm Tree Crew, Day One Ventures, Ethereal Ventures, DeFi Alliance, Volt Capital, PearVC, DCF God, 0xmons and angel investors including crypto influencer Cooper Turley, ex-Coinbase CTO and a16z investor Balaji Srinivasan and former Sequoia partner Liu Jiang. At its core, Koop is a protocol that helps creators and communities launch NFT-based membership passes to raise funds for projects, Murillo told journalist in an interview. The platform has seen $110 million in total value across the treasuries of its 50 active communities buying and selling NFTs, according to Murillo, who noted that the company has a waitlist of 8,500 groups who want to form Koops. Koops, in contrast, can be more centralized, tend to be smaller in size, and afford groups the option to organize around a short-term goal or cause and dissolve the Koop when it has been achieved, Murillo added.

Reddit is launching a new NFT-based avatar marketplace today that allows you to purchase blockchain-based profile pictures for a fixed rate. Reddit noted artists also receive royalties — with a 50/50 profile split with Reddit — from secondary sales of these NFTs on marketplaces like OpenSea and Rarible. You can use Reddit’s own blockchain wallet called Vault — which is available on the firm’s native app — to store and manage these NFTs. Reddit says that while NFT profile pictures is an early-stage blockchain project, it wants to explore more features with the tech.