MetaStreet, a liquidity routing and scaling solution for NFT collateralization platforms, today announced that it has secured $3 million in seed financing and $11 million in initial protocol liquidity to jumpstart the expansion of the quickly developing collateralized NFT lending market.
MetaStreet is the largest capital provider of DAI on NFTfi.com, which accounts for a significant majority of collateralized NFT volume. Despite NFT transaction volumes skyrocketing to ~$17 billion in 2021, NFT-backed loans represented only ~$50 million in comparison, or a sub 1% penetration rate. MetaStreet provides the core infrastructure needed for capital to flow freely into this new market by parameterizing and automating the underwriting and execution process of fixed-rate, NFT-backed loans. In November 2021, MetaStreet provided $1.4 million DAI in collateral against a class 10 Autoglyph – the first $1 million loan in NFT debt history.
“By introducing decentralized financial infrastructure to this new digital economy, MetaStreet allows for true proto-nations to survive and thrive, and expands the GDP of the Metaverse,” said David Choi, co-founder and CEO of MetaStreet. “Our vision to solve Metaverse liquidity through democratization processes is the first step toward shaping this evolution.”
“While novel today, the Metaverse will continue to evolve at a faster rate than any technological innovation we’ve seen to-date, benefiting from the hive mind development and network effects that occur from open-sourced and interoperable technologies,” said Conor Moore, co-founder and COO of MetaStreet. “We remain excited about the opportunities to innovate and serve the growing demand for liquidity solutions in the Metaverse.”
“We expect to see continued growth in NFT transaction volume in 2022, particularly in the hypergrowth Metaverse and Gaming sectors,” said Tom Schmidt, Partner at Dragonfly. “We want to support the tool builders that will drive the NFT-backed debt market to reach normalized penetration rates and grow in lockstep with the broader NFT market expansion.”
MetaStreet plans to utilize the seed financing to support its expansion plan, while the initial protocol liquidity is used to kickstart collateralized lending activity during a period of market education. This funding round was led by Dragonfly Capital, with participation from a number of strategic investors including Ethereal Ventures, Sfermion, Nascent Capital, Delphi INFINFT, Alliance, Seed Club Ventures, Animoca Brands, Republic Realm, Volt Capital, Kerve Capital, CMT Digital, Bitscale Capital, QCP Capital, BigBrainHoldings and Taureon.
About MetaStreet
Founded in 2021 by David Choi, Ivan Sergeev and Conor Moore, MetaStreet is a liquidity routing & scaling protocol for NFT collateralization platforms. The protocol aims to vastly improve capital efficiency in the NFT-backed lending ecosystem through automated underwriting processes and mitigation waterfalls, allowing market participants to access & govern the asset class with an optimized risk/return profile consistent with their personal perceptions of risk.