Halliday Secures $6M Seed Round Led by a16z for ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ NFTs

Quick take:

• Halliday has raised $6 million in a seed round led by a16z.
• The Web3 startup is looking to make it easier for new players to join blockchain games.
• The buy now, pay later model has become popular in the fintech sector as the next generation of banking, called “neobanking”.

Halliday has raised $6 million in a seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). The Web3 startup wants to make it easier for new users to join the blockchain game by offering a ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ support system.

The company wants to leverage the popular “neobanking” mechanism (next generation banking system) to change the way players acquire digital assets in the metaverse.

During a recent interview with Decrypt, Griffin Dunaif, Halliday’s co-founder, said, “So we built our demo, a pitch deck, and we presented it to Andreessen, and they liked what they saw.”

According to Dunaif, work on the project started in November last year, just when the metaverse concept became a real financial possibility after Facebook’s rebranding in October.

The $6 million fundraise also attracted participation from South Korean venture capital giant Hashed, as well as A.Capital and SV Angel, among others.

Halliday is not the only platform trying to leverage the popular lending system for the fintech sector for use in NFTs.

In July, DeFi Lending platform Teller launched a Buy Now Pay Later feature for select blue-chip NFT projects. The ApeNowPayLater project will initially feature 10 blue-chip NFTs, including “Mutant Ape Yacht Club, Moonbirds, Doodles, Cool Cats, Azuki, Meebits, Adidas Originals: Into the Metaverse, RTFKT-MNLTH, and Murakami.Flowers Seed.”

Halliday’s focus appears to be NFTs discussed as part of a blockchain game or metaverse project.

In a blog announcing the new product, the company wrote: “Halliday integrates directly with games and marketplaces as an alternative checkout option, offering players a seamless way to secure ownership and pay for their NFTs over time.”

One of the biggest challenges in joining a blockchain gaming ecosystem is that most monetized games require users to acquire a specific NFT or gaming token to start playing.

This means that if you missed the NFT release of the initial token offering, you could end up spending a lot to gain access.

Halliday is trying to close this gap by offering players an opportunity to get instant access after agreeing to a payment plan.

Keep yourself updated: