Meet 5 Indian startups using NFT technology in innovative ways
In 2021, non-fungible tokens (NFT) took the world by storm, with the sale of multi-million dollar NFTs by various global artists, musicians and actors. In the same year, Indian MNCs like Tech Mahindra and music brands like T-Series jumped on the NFT bandwagon and Indian A-list celebrities including Kamal Hassan, Sunil Gavaskar and Yuvraj Singh unveiled their NFT collection.
However, this year, with the crypto market experiencing a downward trend in recent months, liquidity and trading volume in the global NFT market has decreased.
According to The Block Research data, NFT sales worth $12.22 billion were recorded in the second quarter of 2022, down 63.93% from the first quarter, which produced NFT sales of $33.88 billion.
Representative image of NFT
Nevertheless, macro market trends have not stopped Indian innovators, founders, entrepreneurs and builders from continuing to believe in the transformative potential of NFT technology.
In fact, several Indian startups are actively leveraging NFT technology and demonstrating how blockchain-based ownership can lead to significant changes in a wide range of industries, including real estate, music and advertising. At the same time, these Indian startups are also tackling some of the most pressing concerns like the Indian agrarian crisis and climate action through NFTs.
Here are five such Indian NFT startups that are using NFT technology in innovative ways.
Property record
Founded by Parv Prabhakar, Ryan Smith and Cody Coex Foo in 2022, brings ownership of property through NFTs.
In conversation with The Decryption History, Parv said: “We are trying to solve the inefficiencies of the real estate market by making real estate purchases accessible to the rest of the 90% of the population and democratizing the exclusive system, which was previously limited to the elite class.”
The startup enables fractional ownership of NFTs, where investors can split the cost of owning property between multiple people, lowering the amount of capital required to enter the market. “With fractionation, we shift the power to a common man who can buy NFTs and gain ownership,” said Parv.
In 2021, the startup raised $50,000 in a Pre-Seed round. It is on track to close $1 million in funding by September of this year.
FanTiger
Started by ex-Gaana CEO Prashan Agarwal, connecting artists with fans through NFTs. Owning a fractional NFT of a song allows the holder to earn royalty income based on the song’s performance on Spotify, YouTube, Gaana and other platforms.
In conversation with The Decryption History, Prashan said, “With music streaming, artists usually hand over copyright and royalty income to platforms and record labels, and they work on a flat fee. As a result, their income is reduced and they end up making most of the income (up to 90% in many cases) from events. With FanTiger NFTs, artists and fans can directly own music rights and IPs, earn more through royalty income and gain more upside.”
The platform has signed up artists like Sunanda Sharma and Naalayak for their music releases. It claims to have more partnerships in the pipeline, focusing on music in languages like Punjabi, Tamil, Marathi and Bhojpuri.
OffsetFarm
Founded by Saurabh Saraf and Ankit Mathur in 2021, takes up climate measures through NFTs. The startup allows investors to pre-fund climate projects listed on the platform, and in return the investments are represented by NFTs called SPROUT.
The company has also introduced an OFFSET token, which is backed by a carbon credit, and it is equivalent to one tonne of CO2 saved.
Previously in conversation with The Decryption History, Saurabh explained: “SPROUT is symbolic of any small sprouting plant and our SPROUT token grows and gives users carbon credits. Investors who buy SPROUTs are essentially securing offset supply at a discount to the market price. We looked at how we could tokenize the project’s carbon credits and offer them to investors.”
In addition to this, the startup states that users can access all project-related information through NFTs.
Bridge Finance
Founded by Ashish Anand, Falguni Pandit and Abhishek Bhattacharya in 2018, is a decentralized lending platform that helps farmers avail loans through NFTs.
The NFTs are backed by agricultural commodities and are represented in the form of warehouse receipts. Farmers can then use loans from banks against these NFTs.
In conversation with The Decryption History, Ashish said, “This is a way for farmers to lock their real-world assets on a custodial platform and get loans against it. We have already tokenized over $500 million worth of goods on our platform and across 1,400 warehouses.”
In the future, Bru plans to add partnerships worldwide and target emerging markets for real-world asset tokenization.
Revise
Co-founded by Anil Dukkipatty and Raunaq Vaisoha, helps developers transform their static NFTs into interactive ones to adapt to real-world apps and events.
Earlier in a conversation with The Decryption History, Raunaq said it’s this programmability that the startup aims to enable, allowing NFTs to go beyond JPEG images and become tools and game assets. “You have an NFT, we let developers write a program that allows users to connect it to apps,” Raunaq said.
In addition to this, the startup has partnered with metaverse platform WeMeta to launch NFT billboards to advertise in the metaverse. “By turning static NFTs into dynamic ones, creators can put ads on them, draw brands and open up a new revenue stream,” Raunaq said.
