Non-fungible token (NFT) startup Lysto on Thursday said that it has raised $3 million (Rs 22.25 crore) in seed capital from BEENEXT, Better Capital, Cloud Capital and other investors.
The company plans to use the funds to regularise the global adoption of NFTs, said Lysto in a statement.
NFTs help establish ownership of digital assets on the blockchain as they can be applied to any industry, such as digital art, e-commerce, collectables, gaming, entertainment, animation, real-world assets, and others.
Other investors who participated in the funding round include Binny Bansal (co-founder, Flipkart), Sandeep Nailwal and Jaynti Kanani (co-founders, Polygon), Pradyumna Agarwal (managing director, Temasek), Nitish Mittersain (founder, Nazara Games), Kunal Shah (founder, CRED), Ashish Hemrajani and Parikshit Dhar (co-founders, BookMyShow), Anupam Mittal (founder, Shaadi.com), Ashish Gupta (founder, Helion Ventures), and Kumar Sudarsan (founder, Qwikcilver), among others.
Founded in 2021 by a team with experience in blockchain technology, Lysto is building an application programming interface (API), tools and infrastructure to enable the creation and distribution of NFTs across platforms with ease.
According to Sadiq Ahamed, founder and CEO of Lysto, NFTs are becoming an integral part of business and culture. “With applications across industries, it has tremendous scope for growth. However, at present, it is largely restricted to digital art and collectibles,” said Ahamed.
“As the market expands, we see that every e-commerce player, every production (entertainment, gaming, animation), and every brand would want to launch NFTs to raise funds and monetise their offerings,” he added.
“We are very excited about partnering with Lysto as an infrastructure layer for the NFT space. With its futuristic vision and scalability that allows global application across sectors, Lysto has an ambitious vision to democratising NFTs for every internet user in the world,” said Hero Choudhary, managing partner at BEENEXT.
BEENEXT has been investing in India since 2015. It has made more than 70 bets on Indian startups so far including in payments infrastructure platform YAP, SaaS-based fleet analytics startup Fleetx, logistics-tech startup Loadshare, device management platform Servify, fintech firm Cube Wealth and account automation firm Open.
In September, BEENEXT participated in the Series B funding round of FloBiz, a neobank focused on small and medium businesses.
