Quick take:
- FirstMate has announced a $3.75 million funding round led by Dragonfly Capital.
- The fundraising also attracted participation from Coinbase Venture, NextView and others.
- The company also announced the launch of its creator-owned NFT storefront builder.
FirstMate on Monday announced a $3.75 million funding round led by Dragonfly Capital. Coinbase Ventures and NextView also joined the round. The company is developing an NFT storefront builder that enables creators to easily launch customised marketplaces where they can offer their creative works to their fans.
FirstMate believes that the current NFT marketplace model of “one size fits all” is not ideal for creators and their fans. The company believes that the disintermediation of the “one size fits all concept” reduces friction between creators by aligning incentives for artists and the marketplace.
“We believe that creative people and their supporters are underserved by today’s one-size-fits-all NFT platforms,” FirstMate wrote in a post on X. “These platforms put their own interests above the needs of the individual creative person.”
So far, FirstMate has already onboarded popular digital creators Jen Stark, Odious, Violetta Zironi, Anne Spalter, Noble Gallery and Notable Pepes.
The launch is a collaborative work of FirstMate and Web3 creator studio Manifold. The studio allows creators and issuers of NFTs to put all their assets in one place, enforce royalties on their terms, and customize a site commensurate with the quality of the artwork.
According to The Block, FirstMate CEO, Jacob Frantz said in a statement: “Creators, artists, and platforms today are beholden to one-size-fits-all marketplaces that fail to create, sustain, or grow the direct connection that creators and collectors tell us they want, and simply don’t have their interests at heart.”
FirstMate was founded in 2022 by former employees of Instagram and Walmart. The platform draws experiences from both the online store industry and the creator economy. It is already home to some of the leading creators, hosting marketplaces for the likes of Bankless, Gmoney’s 9dcc, FELT Zine, and Sound.xyz, among others.
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