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NFT-backed Loan Startup Unlockd Raises $4.4 Million

New web3 startup Unlockd allows NFT holders to borrow against their NFTs while still being able to use them.

Photo for the Article - NFT-backed Loan Startup Unlockd Raises $4.4 Million

Unlockd, a startup allowing users to borrow against their non-fungible tokens (NFTs), has recently announced that it has successfully raised $4.4 million in a seed funding round led by Blockchain Capital. The acquired funds will be utilized for product and development, cross-chain expansion, a tier 1 auditor to ensure protocol security, and marketing. 

Unlockd, founded by Lazada Philippines CEO Carlos Otermin and esports club MAD Lions founder Jorge Schnura, allows NFT holders to pledge an asset as collateral in the protocol and still allow the holder to access all the utilities that the NFT has: airdrops, yield, in-game perks, allowlists, community integrations, etc.

According to Schnura, their protocol will initially focus on supporting gaming guilds for he sees Unlockd as a way for them to use their NFTs for liquidity while continuing to generate revenue with them through things like gaming.

“The other use case with guilds is when they pre-buy assets from games that are not launched. Those assets are unproductive assets. They just buy them at a discount. The good thing with this is that you can now borrow against them so you get liquidity from those assets and now suddenly they do become productive assets,” he stated.

The funding round of Unlockd also had the participation of venture capital firms like Sfermion, Spartan Group and Play Ventures. Other investors included IDEO CoLab, Bitscale, Sanctor Capital, Eden Ventures, Caballeros Capital, Emfarsis, Crypto Plaza, Yield Guild Games (YGG), YGG SEA, BreederDAO, BlockchainSpace.

The startup also has angel investors such as YGG founder Gabby Dizon, YGG COO Colin Goltra, BlockchainSpace CEO Peter Ing, BreederDAO CEO Renz Chong, and UPshot Co-founder and CEO Nick Emmons.

“Unlockd will help providing opportunities to key players and contributors, improving efficiency and minimizing idle assets, supporting geographical expansion and developing new subguild,” says Gabby Dizon, co-founder of Yield Guild Games.

“We will be integrating Unlockd’s NFT-backed lending solution within our suite of services, enabling BlockchainSpace guilds and players to seamlessly get additional liquidity for their play-to-earn needs,” says Peter Ing, BlockchainSpace CEO.

The protocol’s pooled liquidity model allows NFT holders to borrow against their NFTs while still being able to use them. Currently, it already has a beta version on a testnet and its protocol is undergoing auditing.

According to the team, Unlockd will launch the UI for the testnet in September and on the mainnet by October. Initially, for the first phase, the protocol will support more than 25 NFT collections based on Ethereum and will later expand to include more collections and Polygon NFTs.

For the third quarter of the year, Unlockd will allow multi-collateral and custody wallet features in the platform. Multi-collateral will let users be able to provide multiple NFTs as collateral in a single transaction, with diversified risk and extra borrowing power.

Other features like Custody Sub-Accounts, Segregated Pools, and Fungible Collateral will be expected in Unlockd soon.

This article is published on BitPinas: NFT-backed Loan Startup Unlockd Raises $4.4 Million

Disclaimer: BitPinas articles and their external content are not financial advice. The team serves to deliver independent, unbiased news to provide information for Philippine-crypto and beyond.

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