Quite lately, Non-fungible tokens or ‘NFTs,’ have gained a lot of attention in the crypto world. It is a global phenomenon now.
To capitalise on the trend, marketplaces to buy and sell NFTs and companies to mint digital assets are emerging a lot. Headquartered in Lithuania, DappRadar is one such company.
Based out of Kaunas, DappRadar is the global decentralised app store for NFTs and DeFi dapps headquartered in Lithuania.
Raised £3.6 million
Recently, the company has raised $5 million (approx £3.6 million) in Series A funding from key investors including Prosus Ventures, Blockchain.com Ventures, and NordicNinja VC.
Blockchain.com Ventures, is the London-based venture capital arm of Blockchain.com, created to support and invest in distributed ledger technology.
The funding will be used to enhance platform functionality and promote widespread dapp adoption.
What are dapps?
It’s worth noting here that Decentralised applications (dapps) are digital applications that exist and run on a blockchain or peer-to-peer network of computers instead of a single computer.
At present, DappRadar has over 500,000 monthly users tracking more than 5,000 dapps on over 20 blockchains, including Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, Polygon, and Flow, amongst others.
DappRadar has witnessed a record-high activity within the NFT space, which saw more than $1.5 billion in volume traded in Q1 2021 alone; an increase of 2,627% compared with the last quarter of 2020.
DeFi, which is experiencing similar market growth, with over $100 billion in total value locked as of April 2021, is also trackable via DappRadar.
How DappRadar Works
DappRadar brings all the information people need about NFTs and the DeFi dapp ecosystem into one destination.
The platform offers consumers the ability to follow, discover, view, and analyse dapps using accurate up to minute insights, effectively manage their crypto portfolio, value NFT collections, and easily access overviews of several key dapp verticals including NFTs, gaming, DeFi, exchanges, collectibles, and marketplaces.
DappRadar takes a strong standpoint on data validity and provision – tracking dapp active users, token volume, and transactions and actively filtering artificial and irrelevant activity – to deliver accurate, actionable, market intelligence.
Skirmantas Januškas, CEO and Co-founder of DappRadar, comments: “We’ve been on the scene since 2018, but the recent surge of interest in the decentralized app and NFT space has been truly astonishing. It’s clear that 2021 is the year that NFTs went mainstream, but we are still only just scratching the surface in terms of the potential widespread adoption of blockchain technology.
Skirmantas continues: “People all across the world, including leading institutions from industries such as art, gaming, and sports, are turning their eyes towards NFTs and have realised that any unique digital item is something that can be discovered, bought, and sold using blockchain, in an accessible way that no longer feels reserved for just those ‘in-the-know’.”
“We’re excited about the future as DappRadar helps provide a bridge into the mainstream. With this new funding, our platform is now in a strong position as the leading dapp store in the world, and we plan to help the public to stay informed and educated within the fast-paced world of dapps, NFTs, and DeFi.”
“Since our initial investment in 2019, the DappRadar team has repeatedly demonstrated their ability to deliver incredible products,” said Banafsheh Fathieh, Head of Americas Investments, Prosus Ventures. “DappRadar is already the most visited, trusted, and cited source for the dapp ecosystem and we believe this new round provides them with the funds to play a significant role in the growth of the overall dapp market moving forward.”
“There is an increasing demand for dapps in Asia and we can see especially the Japanese market maturing fast. Japan is already the 2nd largest market for DappRadar and to fulfil this increasing demand, the service has just been published in Japanese,” says Tomosaku Sohara, Managing Partner of NordicNinja VC.