The last 12 months will go down in history as the year NFTs broke out. Non-fungible tokens have been around since 2014, but their cultural relevance solidified in 2021, infiltrating almost every industry from art and music to charity and even floats in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Yet the multi-billion dollar market rapidly scaled this year without a critical piece to sustain this growth — proper infrastructure. San Francisco-based Mnemonic looks to change that.
“We realized in order to unlock the opportunity and value in this space, there was this key information missing, this data layer of everything that has ever happened in the NFT space,” Andrii Yasinetsky, cofounder and CEO of Mnemonic, tells. While this data was technically public before, Mnemonic looks to make it easier for companies to navigate and track the NFT market and build their own applications using its API.
Mnemonic raised a $4 million round led by Kenetic with participation from Monochrome Capital — where Mnemonic cofounder Ben Metcalfe is a founder and managing partner — Sound Ventures and Tribe Capital, in addition to angel investors, as originally reported in. Tribe Capital knew it wanted to put money behind the NFT space and wasn't sure where to start, firm partner Jared Madfes tells. Kenetic founder Jehan Chu — who led the funding — introduced Tribe Capital to Mnemonic.
The potential use cases for Mnemonic expand far past tracking and compiling NFT data, the founders say. Luxury goods authentication is one potential future use case, Metcalfe tells. Brands like Louis Vuitton could make its authentication certificates into NFTs and use the tech to track whether its goods pass hands on the resale market.
The first NFT was created in 2014 by artist Kevin McCoy three years before the term NFT was coined. The medium really took off in late 2020 when Dapper Labs launched NBA Top Shot, a marketplace where consumers can buy and sell NFTs of notable NBA plays and moments. The market further gained clout earlier this year when digital artist Mike Winkelmann sold an NFT for more than $69 million at Christie’s. Last quarter, more than $10.
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