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Odaily Translator | Nian Yin Si Tang
Summary:
Summary:
- Highlight is the latest startup with a vision to "empower creators and their fans with Web3 tools".
- The company has closed an $11 million funding round led by Haun Ventures.
The music and entertainment industry has emerged as one of the most promising areas of the crypto and NFT space, offering an alternative to a streaming-based business model that many believe is broken by offering artists new ways to connect with their fans .
A recent example is Highlight, a cryptocurrency startup founded by two former executives from Square (now known as Block), which announced Tuesday that it closed an $11 million funding round led by Haun Ventures. This may be Haun Ventures' second investment in the encryption field.News on May 6, NFT startup ZoraAnnounced the completion of a $50 million seed round at a valuation of $600 million
, Haun Ventures led the investment, Coinbase Ventures, Kindred Ventures and others participated. Haun Ventures is a Web3 venture capital institution founded by a16z general partner Katie Haun, and this is its first capital injection.
In addition to Haun Ventures, institutions including Polygon Studios and Coinbase Ventures, as well as individual investors including Coinbase's Gokul Rajaram, Linda Xie, and Compound founder Robert Leshner also participated in the round.
Highlight provides a complete set of Web3 services, such as smart contracts and community building tools, packaged in an easy-to-use interface. The idea is to make it easy for artists to create NFT Drops, or closed communities, and for fans to buy such products with cryptocurrency or credit cards.
In an interview with Decrypt, Highlight co-founder Nathaniel Emodi described the service as "the music fan club of the future." He added that while many of its early customers were musicians, Highlight could serve a wide variety of creators and entrepreneurs, such as writers or artisan bakers.
In Emodi's view, Web3 is superior to earlier alternatives when it comes to growing fan communities, but some clunky designs prevent the technology from reaching its full potential. That’s why, he said, Highlight was designed to allow fans to participate using either crypto wallets like MetaMask or more familiar tools like credit cards and browsers.
Under the hood, Highlight uses the low-cost Polygon network and studios for all token and NFT operations, allowing companies to further reduce friction without incurring minting or transaction fees.
For creators, Highlight has the potential to help them kick-start fan community influence by offering a range of “perks,” such as exclusive access to Discord rooms or NFTs that serve as backstage passes to live events.
"If you only have 10 followers, but you're working toward a goal of 1,000 real followers, then you can use the whole platform, it's self-serve," Emodi said, arguing that Web3 makes it easier for creators to rely on a small But a loyal fan base to support themselves.At the same time, artists can also provide tokens to fans through Highlight, allowing them to take a cut of the revenue of certain songs or other works. The idea has already gained considerable traction in the music industry, another NFT music platform called Royal is one example. Last November, the RoyalAnnounced the completion of a new round of financing of $55 million, a16z, Coinbase Ventures, Paradigm, The Chainsmokers, Nas, Logic&Kygo, etc. participated in the investment. It is reported that Royal was launched by Justin "3LAU" Blau, a well-known American DJ and producer, to help artists create and sell NFTs, while providing a new business model where fans can earn royalties by investing in artists' works in return.。
The platform has already helped rapper Nas and other famous artists issue tokens to fans
As for Highlight, the start-up was founded a year ago and is fledgling, but already has some musical clients, including pop DJ Moon Boots and rock trio City of the Sun.
The idea that Web3 will change the economics of the music industry isn't proven yet, but the idea itself is pretty compelling. The eventual success of a startup like Highlight may unlock its ability to implement a simple, easy-to-use interface that will provide fans with the benefits of Web3 without being particularly complex.
