Singapore-based venture capital firm True Global Ventures (TGV) on Tuesday announced $1.25 million funding with non-fungible tokens (NFT) platform Forza Ikonia to finance a vision of taking NFTs to the mass market with a frictionless first buyer experience using the eco-friendly Polygon blockchain technology.
TGV said in a statement that the investment coincides with the release of MAUER – an NFT collection memorializing the Berlin Wall. MAUER consists of 10,316 NFTs, one for every day the Berlin Wall stood. 51 percent of the proceeds of the primary and secondary market go to charities that work for freedom, fairness and democracy.
Forza Ikonia has previously pioneered the concept of Emotion NFTs to illustrate the emotional experiences of athletes during important moments. The first release was by tennis legend Björn Borg and Ikonia has upcoming drops with several top-tier sports stars. Other near future projects include esports teams and influencers. The goal is to become the Y Combinator of NFTs, releasing at least one new NFT project per month.
The secret sauce is a frictionless first buyer experience which is more than five times quicker than traditional NFT platforms like Opensea and Rarible. Forza Ikonia is introducing a purchase process with streamlined card payment and automatic crypto wallet creation.
Creatives, brands and stars alike can now make end-to-end use of Forza Ikonia’s platform to quickly and affordably launch green, mass-market NFTs with zero gas fees.
TGV also noted the NFT market has experienced a meteoric rise with over 10 million NFTs sold to date, generating over $10 billion in sales. It is driven by many factors including true digital ownership of sports memorabilia, gaming, appreciation of art and culture, etc.
With the recognition of the growth of NFTs and the platforms that enable them to target the masses, TGV’s blockchain equity fund True Global Ventures 4 Plus (TGV4 Plus) continues to invest in talented serial entrepreneurs through more equity funding rounds with globally ambitious blockchain start-ups. The fund is dedicated to blockchain companies, primarily in late-stage Series B and C across four verticals: entertainment, infrastructure, financial services, data analytics / artificial intelligence (AI). The typical size of each investment ranges from $3 million to $10 million, together with entrepreneurs, business angels, family offices, and institutional investors, many with co-investment rights in future equity rounds.
“With the investment, we can further expand our commitment to the NFT art and collectibles market,” said Patrik Arnesson, Chief Executive Officer of Forza Ikonia.
Forza Ikonia Chairman Mikael Pawlo also opined that TGV is the perfect partner to Forza Ikonia and is a strategic fit to the firm plans to build a world-class NFT experience.
Meanwhile, TGV Founder and Director Dušan Stojanović said the fund strongly believes in the NFT market and has already made many investments in the area.
“Forza Ikonia’s team and background is exactly the kind of drive and opportunity we are looking for”, he added.
Forza Ikonia is a sister company to Forza Football, one of the world’s largest football apps with more than 15 million downloads. It is a highly scalable, frictionless and green technical platform for the creation of NFT concepts. The platform is able to host auctions, handle smart contracts, mint NFTs and let the user purchase NFTs with card payments. Its team develops concepts internally, as well as on behalf of third-parties.
The firm is founded on the belief that the Metaverse will become more significant than the real world. NFTs will only grow more important in the Metaverse as a way for people to connect to their history, heritage, and humanity.
TGV is a global venture capital firm built by a group of serial entrepreneurs with a solid track record of investing their own money together with limited partners into a few early and mainly late-stage ventures run by serial entrepreneurs. Portfolio companies leverage technology, data, AI, and blockchain as a competitive advantage to drive change with proven products. The fund is present in 20 cities: Singapore, Hong Kong, Taipei, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Moscow, Stockholm, Paris, Warsaw, New York, San Francisco, and Vancouver, among others.