Hawku Raises $4M From Top Crypto Investors to Build the Premier Gaming and Utility NFT Marketplace
I am excited to announce that Hawku has raised a $4M seed round to build the premier marketplace for gaming and utility NFTs.
We are so fortunate to have an amazing list of investors partnering with us on this journey, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and including but not limited to: Dragonfly Capital, Multicoin Capital, Alameda Research, Animoca Brands, Solana, Virtual Human Studio, e^{i} ventures and more!
I first got into Non-fungible tokens (aka NFTs) in 2018 during the CryptoKitty craze (although in retrospect I should have bought punks, not kitties). NFTs are basically a digital certificate of ownership validated by the blockchain. I fell in love with the fact that they make it easy to buy and sell pretty much anything.
I see NFTs as divided into two broad categories: art/collectible/avatar NFTs and utility/gaming NFTs.
Today’s NFTs are dominated by avatars, art and collectibles. These digital assets are solving important social and emotional needs, such as the emotions they produce from ownership of a beautiful or rare asset, the social status of owning one, or the ability to be part of a community of like-minded people. However, most of their value is limited to emotional or social value or simply speculation.
The next generation of NFT demand will be dominated by utility and gaming NFTs that provide functional value; in other words, NFTs that return something of value like tokens or revenue. This includes anything from character NFTs in online games that let you earn tokens when you play with them, to the NFT of a digital billboard that produces daily advertising revenue, to the NFT of in-real-world, revenue-generating real estate.
Current NFT marketplaces have been doing a great job targeting the needs of collectible and art NFTs - showing the aesthetics of beautiful artwork or the rarity of a social token.
However, these criteria are not very useful when determining the value of utility and gaming NFTs whose valuation is based on the functional value they provide. As a result, most prospective buyers are currently in the dark when making purchase decisions on these types of NFTs.
Hawku plans to change that. We are building a marketplace that is focused on the specific needs of gaming and utility NFTs. Our vision is to provide prospective buyers with the real-time data they need to research, buy and sell utility-based assets.
Today, Hawku already has a platform that provides the key information players need to research, buy and sell horse NFTs for the popular Zed.run game platform. In the four months since it launched, Hawku has already reached 3M monthly page views and has built an avid following. The problem and market demand are real.
Hawku will use this new investment to further build out a marketplace that serves the needs of the gaming and utility ecosystem, allowing people to research and make better purchasing decisions. It will also continue to invest in helping people buy, sell, and research Zed properties, and also expand into new games and utility NFTs - providing a marketplace that can serve all utility and gaming NFTs.
We are in the very beginning of a once-in-a-century change in how asset ownership is managed. We will soon be in a world where almost any asset—in the real world or in a metaverse—will be available to buy and sell as an NFT, providing liquidity of assets in ways we cannot imagine. New tools will be needed to help people manage, value, buy and sell these assets. Hawku wants to be at the forefront of helping make this new change a reality.
I am so excited about the opportunity and where the future will lead us.
If you are also excited about this vision and would love to join, we are hiring!
Also, if you are building a great NFT game that you think would be a great fit for Hawku, please email us at partners AT hawku.com.
Charlie Graham
Founder & CEO
Hawku, Inc.
PS, please feed your horses! (If you have been using Hawku you’ll understand).