Quick take:
- Upshot has completed a $22 million funding round led by Polychain.
- The company specialises in providing technology that can accurately appraise NFTs at scale.
- Other investors in the project include Framework Ventures, CoinFund, Blockchain Capital, Slow Ventures, Mechanism Capital, and Delphi Digital.
Leading non-fungible token (NFT) appraisal platform Upshot has completed a $22 million funding round led by Polychain. Upshot describes itself as the first-ever company to accurately appraise the value of digital assets like NFTs at scale.
Polygon joins a growing list of backers that includes Framework Ventures, CoinFund, Blockchain Capital, Slow Ventures, Mechanism Capital, and Delphi Digital, among others.
The company said it will use the funds to revamp its research team as it continues to develop its valuation models.
Despite the rapid growth in popularity over the last 12 months, the market is still divided regarding the best approach to valuing NFTs.
However, Upshot thinks its appraisal and machine learning technology could be the solution that ends the long-lasting debate. According to the company, its intuitive AI “opens up best in class primitives for bringing liquidity and DeFi to the NFT space and is poised to dramatically expand the set of use cases of nonfungible assets.”
Upshot is also looking to use the funds to finance its novel decentralized finance (DeFi) x NFT primitives whilst also creating more developer tools that others can use to leverage its DeFi and NFT price feeds.
Commenting on the latest fundraising, Upshot co-founder & CEO Nick Emmons highlighted the inefficient mechanisms that continue to limit the potential growth of NFTs.
Emmons said his company has been working tirelessly over the last 12 months to build the best pricing models in the NFT space.
“We’re incredibly excited to partner with Polychain, one of the premiere crypto funds, as we embark on this next wave of development,” he said, adding that “[Upshot will continue] to improve our industry-leading pricing models, and building out a suite of novel, exotic new primitives at the intersection of DeFi and NFTs.”
The company is looking to pounce on the opportunity created by the intersection of NFTs and DeFi, which it thinks presents a new high-growth vertical in the industry. Upshot wants to help unlock that growth by providing real-time price feeds, thereby limiting volatility and price bubbles with the NFT space.
Olaf Carlson-Wee, Founder and CEO of Polychain Capital said “Polychain is inspired by the vision of a collective intelligence platform rewarding its users for accurately modelling and pricing esoteric assets,” adding that Upshot has already demonstrated the efficacy of its industry-leading pricing models that were used in the appraisal of the Sotheby’s Bored Ape Yacht Club batch auction, and many more.
Jake Brukman, Founder at CoinFund echoed Carlson-Wee’s remarks adding “Upshot’s appraisal and machine learning technology opens up best in class primitives for bringing liquidity and DeFi to the NFT space and is poised to dramatically expand the set of use cases of nonfungible assets.”
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