Venly, a “major” blockchain tech provider from Belgium, announced that it has secured over €21 million (appr. $23 million) in Series A funding, led by Courtside Ventures along with contributions from Transcend Fund, Coinbase Ventures, Tioga Capital, High-Tech Gründerfonds, Fortino, Plug and Play, Leadblock Partners, Imec Istart, and Alpaca VC.
Venly will use the funding from the investment round “to develop products centered around new benefits to web3 users, with a close focus on gaming as well as eCommerce.”
As mentioned in an update shared with CI, Venly “creates powerful tools and products empowering Web2 businesses to leverage Web3 technology and integrate it seamlessly into their own business processes without sacrificing user experience or security.”
Their intuitive API platform “delivers groundbreaking innovation to prominent companies in the blockchain gaming space, including The Sandbox, Aavegotchi, Bondly, Shopify, and other industry leaders.”
While Venly claims that it is already “very successful” today, they raised Series A “to spearhead their growth further into two industries.”
Venly will focus “on deeper platform integrations within the Gaming industry, so that game studios and publishers can leverage web3 through a fully compliant no-code solution.”
eCommerce will be “the next priority, representing a strong fit for Venly who has already launched a powerful Shopify integration.”
Next to this, Venly will launch “an accelerator track for game studios and web3 startups to support the entire blockchain ecosystem.”
Startups will be able “to use Venly licenses at a discounted rate while getting guidance and investments from the Venly Accelerator team and ecosystem of partners.”
The third focus point will be “to grow and develop the Venly marketplace to make it ‘the most user-friendly and widely-used option on the market’.”
In the coming months, Venly will focus on “hiring top talent to continue spearheading innovation, as well as striking new partnerships with industry players.”
In this sense, launching the accelerator track (aka “Venly Accelerator”) will “bring new connections, too.”
On the tech side, Venly will be “incorporating robust gaming SDKs (Software Development Kits), making gaming its most immediate focus due to fast scaling opportunities.”
Next, the company will be further developing its marketplace “for next-level user experience.”
By fortifying eCommerce integrations (such as the one that allows Venly users to sell NFTs through Shopify), Venly “is signaling its clear focus on eCommerce in the long run.”
On the operations side, Venly will also be “launching the VENS Token, an internal token to drive loyalty and engagement of the Venly Market users.”
It will also continue ‘to work hard to keep meeting global compliance requirements.”
Tim Dierckxsens, CEO of Venly, stated:
“The problem today is that most developers and end-users have difficulty interacting with Web3 technology. It needs to be more aligned with Web2 usability, which is exactly what the Venly platform provides. Our APIs and services allow a Web2 company to seamlessly integrate with Web3. Moreover, we want to focus on our marketplace for the mainstream users. The Venly NFT marketplace is easier to use than any other platform out there.”
Dierckxsens added:
“The Venly platform provides game developers the ability to easily launch Web3 experiences,” says Kai Bond, Partner at Courtside Ventures. We fundamentally believe that the next huge area of growth in the NFT ecosystem will come from mainstream users interacting with their favorite IP.”
As noted in a release, Venly (previously Arkane Network) is “a blockchain-agnostic technology provider with wallet, NFT, and marketplace services, among others.”
It offers brands, games, and platforms “easy to implement blockchain tech like digital wallets for their end-users.”
Series A investors reportedly “include Courtside Ventures, Transcend Fund, Fortino Capital, Alpaca VC, HTGF, Tioga Capital, LeadBlock Partners, Coinbase Ventures, David Majert, Plug and Play, Powerhouse Capital, and Imec.Istart.”