Revel raises $7.8M to be Instagram and Robinhood of NFTs

Revel, an NFT or “social collectibles” platform, has acquired $7.8 million in venture funding led by Dragonfly Capital, according to Adi Sideman, the startup’s CEO.

“Revel is a hybrid between Instagram and Robinhood wrapped in social game economics,” Sideman explained.

Instagram is a social media site, whereas Robinhood is an investing and trading platform. Revel integrates them both, allowing consumers to construct a “portfolio of media of the people they collect,” Sideman added. (As a side note, Instagram said earlier this month that creators on its platform will soon be able to make their own NFTs and sell them directly to followers, both on and off the visual social network.)

Revel’s marketplace allows users to produce NFTs for their followers, friends, or community and also allows consumers to own editions of the media they like and follow, Sideman added.

“Followers have a stake in the community in which they participate, which is a tremendous new experience,” Sideman said. “It’s subtle, yet it’s potent.”

And it’s not just about money, he stressed. “I’m referring to the emotional stake, the community stake, the status, the new paradigm in which people become partners in the personal brands of others.”

According to Sideman, the platform uses “social game economics” through game design and basic rules to control economic concepts such as supply and demand, as well as inflation, among other things. The basis of Revel’s economy is a gaming idea that limits supply and asset publishing to “sustainable inflation levels,” according to him.

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“We call it ‘Proof of Demand Minting,’ since anyone can make their first collection, but only those who are collected can make more,” Sideman explained. “We gamify it to simplify it and conceal economic intricacies. As a result of playing a collectibles game, players are trading in a marketplace and contributing to the management of efficient economies.”

Early users on the platform are both web3-savvy folks as well as young people “who have more time to engage with new platforms and figure out new games,” Sideman added. According to Sideman, the platform has also attracted content artists such as Cyrus Dobre, who has roughly 10 million TikTok followers and “frequently mints his art” on the marketplace.

Union Square Ventures, Sfermion, 6th Man Ventures, Gaingels, Wagmi Ventures, Alumni Ventures, Global Impact Ventures, Hansa Labs, and Polygon were among the investors. Sideman stated that the funds will be utilized to develop Revel’s web3 interoperability, generative and collaborative AI functionality, and social features.

There is currently no substantial social media collectible ecosystem. Some marketplaces aren’t highly social, like OpenSea or Magic Eden, and collectible platforms like Sorare and NBA Top Shot aren’t social media-focused, Sideman added.

“What is not yet here, but is unavoidable, is that media produced on social media, by users, and personal media will all be ownable and collectible,” Sideman explained. “These ushers in a new generation of services that are part social networks, half marketplaces, and part social games.”

Revel is a social network and a marketplace rolled into one. It’s meant to be a simple, gamified trading platform that allows people to mint photographs and videos as valuables. However, whether the concept will catch on with lesser creators and normal people remains to be seen.

“The average individual will not want to ‘purchase’ your photograph, but it’s more subtle than that,” Sideman explained. “The tail of the creator economy continues becoming longer … and we’ve established a free economy that we hope most people won’t open their wallets for. They can barter and say, ‘Give me three of these for one of those.’ It’s a media game in many respects.” Some people can make proposals based solely on assets, while others can offer both goods and money in exchange for a deal, according to Sideman.

There are other projects in the market today centered on individual creators — one new entrant, in particular, is making a lot of noise — but if the genre of digital collectibles can grow despite a generally lackluster NFT market, Revel could be onto something interesting: a real use case for the blockchain.

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