German Startup FUEL Raises €1.5 Million Despite Signs of NFT Bubble Burst
Berlin-based startup FUEL has successfully raised €1.5 Million this week despite increasing signs that the NFT bubble is on the verge of popping. The investment will help the company continue to mint digital tokens.
The company has set its eyes on becoming the “Shopify for NFTs”.
This was the pre-seed round in which a bunch of other investors participated including London-based Seedcamp, Notion Capital, FintechCollective, and more.
Some of the angel investors such as David Osojnik, Bitstamp CTO, Paul Forster, Indeed founder, and Michael Pennington, Co-founder of Gumtree also joined the round.
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FUEL – the Shopify of NFTs?
Shopify, as we all know is an e-commerce platform that enables independent stores to sell their products. On the other hand, FUEL allows digital creators to build their own customer-branded NFT stores.
FUEL was founded by Thanh Binh Tran, Stefan Tietze, Csongar Barabasi, and Patrice Deckert. The main objective of the platform is to bring NFTs further into the mainstream, by bringing it in the hands of millions of creators and their fans.
FUEL is primarily based on the idea that artists will not require technical expertise to launch, manage, and expand their NFT offerings.
Csongor Barabasi, Chief Technology Officer, FUEL said that the platform is entirely developed for different types of creators including musicians, social media creators, and digital artists.
Barabasi added that these users can sell all types of digital content, from videos to images, and even in-game collectibles, VR merchandise, and tickets.
The rise of NFTs since 2021
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) were a major talking point in 2021 as their popularity reached the sky in 2021. However, trends suggest that the hype around these digital tokens is gradually mellowing.
As per many experts, the NFT bubble is on the verge of popping, which may affect its sales in the future. However, despite these concerns, FUEL has successfully raised funds in the pre-seed round.
Despite what the trends suggest, FUEL’s founders highlight how the sales of NFTs have skyrocketed from $95 million in 2020 to $25 billion in 2021.
According to the Investment bank Jefferies, that figure could touch a staggering $80 billion by the end of 2025.
There has been a lot of development in the NFT space since Beeple managed to sell a piece of art as an NFT for a whopping $69.3 million at an auction in March 2021.
Since then, a lot of people have expressed their desire to be involved in the NFT market.
Even social media platforms including Twitter and Facebook (now Meta) are doing their bit to get their skin in the NFT game.
For instance, Twitter introduced hexagon-shaped display pictures for users who own verified NFTs. Even Twitter’s owner solid his first tweet as an NFT for $2.5 million in 2021.
Although experts believe that the NFT bubble is very close to popping, companies such as FUEL are attracting investments. Will the trend continue or will the NFT market hit a rough patch in the near future?
Leave your comments below and tell us what you think.
SEE ALSO: NFTs Worth $1.7 Million Stolen from Opensea Users
Feature Image: Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay
