Quick take:
- Leading blockchain platform Polygon has backed crypto payment platform Paper in a $9.3M funding round.
- Paper said it will use the funds to revamp its payments platform to onboard NFT buyers via E-Mail.
- The fundraising included a $7.3 million seed round and $2 million from angel investors.
New launched crypto payments startup Paper has completed a $9.3 million funding round. The company raised $7.3 million in a seed round after receiving $2 million from angel investors.
Paper is looking to make it easier for everyone to buy, hold or use digital collectibles like non-fungible tokens (NFTs) by enabling e-mail transactions.
The startup’s latest fundraising was co-led by Electric Capital and Initialized Capital. Polygon, FalconX, Long Journey Ventures, ThirdWeb, Night Capital and the founders of Plaid, Twitch, Fractal, MagicEden, Eventbrite, Tagomi and Bison Trails also participated in the seed round.
Paper allows users to create wallets using their e-mail address, making it as easy as opening a PayPal account. In addition, the platform is looking to enable NFT purchases and sales via credit cards (or crypto wallets) across the Polygon, Ethereum, Solana and Avalanche blockchains.
As a result, Paper says it is trying to create a smooth bridge for onboarding non-crypto traders to the world of digital collectibles.
In an interview with TechCrunch, James Sun, co-founder and CEO of the company said “We view NFTs as a utility, instead of the easiest way to buy a [JPEG].”
“Some of them have cool things like membership but we’re most excited about the ones [focusing on more than just collectibles].”
Paper is looking to use the funds to add to its team in order to continue expanding its wallet infrastructure and security, as well as, making the product interoperable across all blockchains.
The startup has already worked with some of the leading brands in the fashion industry including Fnatic, Deadmau5, Boohoo and YesTheory, in its bid to make NFTs more accessible by enabling credit card purchases.
It plans to launch a software development kit 9SDK) in order to onboard ore white-label brands.
“The SDK we’re building allows brands and developers to flexibly build a checkout experience that’s uniquely theirs without the Paper logo,” Sun said. “It will allow them to take the wallets we’ve spun up for users and create a branded environment for that wallet so it only displays the NFTs for that brand, versus today where your wallet has all the different NFTs you have.”
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