Overland Park startup CryptoSlam closed a $9 million seed round, and the list of investors reads like a who's who of big business players.
There's serial investor Mark Cuban, who also owns the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, and a plethora of founders: Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn), James Park (Fitbit), Kun Gao (Crunchyroll) and Stephen Wang and Patrick Lee (Rotten Tomatoes). The list continues.
For CryptoSlam, the round was more than a capital injection. It adds strategic investors with industry connections to open the door to partnerships and other opportunities, CryptoSlam CEO and founder Randy Wasinger said.
Animoca Brands, a respected leader and "pioneer in the NFT space" led the round. Other investors included KCRise Fund, OKEx Blockdream Ventures, PKO Investments, and Twenty5Twenty, among others.
"It's nice to be aligned with those that have that belief for what the future of the industry is going to be, not just what it is today," Wasinger said.
CryptoSlam provides transparency in the fragmented non-fungible token industry, aggregating data from a variety of blockchains and NFT collections. Its website gives users access to an NFT's performance and history, such as who owned it, the number of buyers and what it sold for. Thousands of people use the website daily, and media outlets such as Forbes, TechCrunch and Reuters have cited the startup's data in their reports.
Ed Frindt, a partner in KCRise Fund, likens it to Zillow and Bloomberg. Prior to Bloomberg, he said, private securities transactions weren't transparent.
"When Bloomberg screens were on every trader's desk, suddenly the market was more liquid and efficient because all of the trades were there," Frindt said via email.
CryptoSlam aims to bring NFTs into the mainstream and be a user-friendly, one-stop shop for exploring NFT mintage, sales, owner and valuation data, regardless of the blockchain it was minted on, he said.
"We very much see this as a fintech play, and that is a sector where our region has a proven competitive advantage," Frindt said. "One of the things that most attracted us to CryptoSlam is they are proud to be a Kansas City company, and to raise the KC flag for NFTs nationally. KCRise Fund sees incredible value in being involved in one of the first venture-backed crypto/NFT startups in the region. The talent opportunities for technical and non-technical roles will be immense, and the company values growing a core team in Kansas City."
CryptoSlam, which grew from two employees to 24 last year, plans to double its headcount, Wasinger said. It's adding engineers as well as marketing and administrative roles. The startup also plans to use the seed money to expand its platform to new and existing blockchains and launch new products, including an NFT data API, which would allow developers to build on top of the platform.
Wasinger, a longtime sports card collector, became interested in NFTs when the MLB Champions collection was released. He built a prototype to track the data, which eventually became CryptoSlam. When the startup began tracking NBA Top Shot, it got Cuban's attention and spurred him to contact Wasinger about becoming an early investor. Cuban invested in both CryptoSlam's pre-seed and seed round.
Wasinger said the use cases for NFTs will continue to broaden, from expanding into gaming to sports and event ticketing.
"We want to provide an ultimate transparency to the NFT industry, regardless of blockchain," he said. "If there's an NFT out there that people care about, we want to track that and make everything about that NFT transparent."
