Recur, a technology company that creates on-chain branded experiences for fans to buy, collect, and resell digital products and collectibles with NFTs, has announced a Series A fundraising at $50 Million, valuing the startup to $333 Million endorsed by billionaire Steve Cohen’s family office.
The Winklevoss Twins and Gary Vaynerchuk were in on it. Wow. Sort of late to the game, but if they know how to play it they could actually make some cash.
Recur plans to use the new funds to invest in the company’s go-to-market strategy, including fueling its workforce by hiring over 150 people, developing new brand experiences, as well as introducing a new NFT platform, NFTU.com.
Zach Bruch, Co-CEO of Recur, commented,
“Original ownership and scarcity are hard to define in the current digital landscape online, making it hard to value digital assets. NFTs are a paradigm shift for digital ownership and collectibility. They are digital assets/products/artworks/anything that has verifiable ownership, embedded scarcity that cannot be manipulated, and they provide real value that are interoperable and useful in real and digital realms.”
Co-founded by Zach Bruch and Trevor George, Recur’s team consists of some pretty heavy cats. But let’s be real, what is this doing to rebalance the power structure?
NFTs Aren’t Bitcoin
Recur has announced the latest partnership with artificial intelligence firm Veritone and CLC, one of the largest collegiate trademark licensing companies in the country, aiming to expand its service for fans and communities to access, engage, play, and collect.
The music industry is a pretty nasty place, and small labels always have an issue. It all comes down to money, and this platform could empower artists if they know how to use it.
Veritone has also partnered with Pac-12 Networks, a collegiate athletic conference in the U.S western states, and becomes its exclusive licensing partner. Under the partnership, all Pac-12 NFTs created through Recur will be licensed by Veritone.
It breaks down like this, artists create everything, but making money on the creations is pretty rough. The recording industry has made a lot of money by creating marketing machines, but this engenders a creative culture where money matters more than development.
NFTs turn the clock back to a time when people could own their music, but they also empower artists. Think about it, if one can create royalty systems for NFTs, recording artists can be paid whenever their work sells, now, and forever.
The Market for NFTs Continues to Grow
NFTs have rapidly increased recently as a multi-billion-dollar market, attracting new buyers from industries with high levels of fan engagement such as mainstream influencers, leading artists, and high-profile investors.
According to reports, NFT sales hit $900 million in August, which surpassed the previous high set in May of this year.
The COVID-19 pandemic requires people to keep their distance, which is also the main reason to boost NFTs’ growth, especially in the sports and music industries which are using the technology to maximize fan engagement.
People are living online in large blocks of time. For the moment, this requires a tremendous amount of projection, but this won’t last.
There will be more and more reasons to get into digital assets, and this might be the biggest help to recording artists ever. Music is a vibration, but NFTs last as long as the blockchain. In other words, NFTs are like digital gold.
Unlike gold, which can be stolen, melted down, and beaten to a fine layer on anything, NFTs are stable. No one wants to see the bottom fall out of the global scheme, but if it does, at least we will have NFTs, and a music format that rewards artists.