The Berlin-based technology company FUEL raised 1,5 million euros, aiming to become “Shopify for NFT“. The pre-seed funding round involved investors, including New York-based FintechCollective, London-based Seedcamp and Notion Capital with its pre-seed vehicle, Pioneers, and also involved angel investors and experts such as David Osojnik, Bitstamp’s CTO, Gumtree co-founder Michael Pennington and Paul Forster, founder of Indeed.
The platform, founded by Csongor Barabasi, Thanh Binh Tran, Stefan Tietze and Patrice Deckert, aims to make NFTs mainstream – in the hands of millions of creators and their fans. Creators can now launch, manage and develop their collection of NFT using a wide range of tools that integrate seamlessly under the roof of the FUEL platform.
Speaking about the sector’s capabilities, Stefan Tietze and Patrice Deckert, co-founders of FUEL, said FUEL is a platform that offers the ability to develop and improve NFT capabilities. Last year, globally, NFTs worth 25 billion dollars were traded from 95 million dollars in 2020, while artists such as Steve Aoki, Nas, Grimes and international brands such as Lamborghini joined the sector.For a long time, after all, the artistic establishment has seen significant value in the field, with brokers like Sotheby’s also entering the market, according to them.
According to Csongor Barabasi, co-founder of FUEL, although there is a growing hype, NFTs are still at an early stage, as the barrier to entry for creators is very high and the market has outgrown the key sales functionalities of aggregators such as OpenSea while creators need more tools to succeed in the next phase.
Talking about the company’s plans in the near future, Thanh Binh Tran, co-founder of FUEL, added that the company is already working with Tomorrowland-DJs Mat.Joe and several other leading artists and companies that have not yet been announced to launch several NFT drops within the next two weeks.