The Animoca-backed NFT DeFi protocol, Vera is becoming the leading multichain project to rent or mortgage NFTs with or without collateral.
Denver, March 10, 2022 — A new and fast-growing Silicon Valley startup is helping nonfungible token (NFT) creators and brands unlock billions in untapped utilities and revenue potential for its retail consumers without requiring capital locked or risked exposure to market volatility.
Vera Labs is behind Vera, an NFT decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol backed by Animoca Brands. It offers the industry’s leading non-custodial NFT financial platform that allows anyone to transact NFTs requiring conditional ownership such as rentals, lending, subscriptions, financing and more. Businesses that build NFT apps or games with Vera can eliminate hefty development costs, operational overhead and legal risks while increasing utility, resale value and secondary market revenue streams from their NFTs.
The Vera team demonstrates renting and lending NFTs at the ETHDenver 2022 event.
Recently at ETHDenver 2022, Vera demonstrated its ability to successfully rent metaverse NFTs on three major NFT blockchains without collateral: Ethereum, Polygon and BNB Smart Chain. The development came after Vera’s December Ethereum mainnet launch when Vera’s team demonstrated the rental of a million-dollar Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT.
“Our vision is to allow anyone to monetize or enjoy NFT utilities, which is why we’re the first multichain protocol to support NFT lending without collateral,” said Denis Lam, CEO of Vera Labs. “For anyone aspiring to build a dream NFT startup, let us be your strategic partner to maximize the lifetime utilities and value of your NFTs at scale.”
Demo of lending an NFT on a Vera-enabled application without requiring collateral.
The essential NFT financial stack for the metaverse
Since its genesis at the start of 2021, Vera has surpassed $2 million in NFT rental transactions and completed more than 50 partnerships and integrations with prominent NFT apps and brands such as OpenSea, The Sandbox, Decentraland, Netvrk, Totem, Next Earth, Highstreet, ChainGuardians, Binopoly and Bored Ape Yacht Club. More than 30 NFT applications and games are currently developing on Vera, resulting in more than 100,000 NFTs valued in the tens of millions of dollars that will soon be added to the Vera network.
Vera is currently working on commercial partnerships in the gaming and entertainment space with Animoca Brands portfolio companies, plus two of the most significant global events and ticketing companies.
Yat Siu, co-founder and chairman of Animoca Brands and a Vera seed investor, said, “Vera is building a secure decentralized financial platform that is urgently needed in the NFT space to enable several essential financial services that many of us take for granted in the real world. We look forward to being a catalyst to help Vera become a leading open financial platform for all NFT assets.”
“Vera allows anyone to unlock next-generation utilities and business strategies for NFTs,” said Michael Arbach, chief technology officer of Vera Labs. “Similar to how Stripe made it easy to monetize with Web2, Vera allows anyone to easily build NFT secondary marketplaces, GameFi apps or subscription products that unlock billions in utilities and revenues.”
What’s up next?
During the following year, users can expect Vera to launch on additional blockchains such as Solana and decentralized autonomous organization-governed peer-to-pool (P2P) financial services that allow users to instantly rent or finance NFTs while NFT and liquidity suppliers can earn attractive yields.
“P2P rentals and financing is just the start,” said Kate Wong, a former corporate lawyer and head of business development at Vera Labs. “As the Web3 space matures, we predict the emergence of institutional NFT investment products similar to how mortgage-backed securities are governed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Our leadership is determined to turn this future into reality.”
Last year, It was voted Best DeFi Application of the Year by the Panony group. It also won a grant from Web3 Foundation and raised more than $3 million in seed funding from institutional investors, including Animoca Brands, Sky Vision Capital, Shima Capital, Infinity Ventures, Double Peak Group, Digital Finance Group, Formless Capital, Spark Digital Capital, LD Capital, Axia8 Ventures, AU21 Capital and Krypital Group among others.
Key angel investors include Animoca Ventures founder James Ho, Sky Vision Capital founder Sandra Wu, Paxos founder Richmond Teo, Polygon founder Sandeep Nailwal, SupraOracles founder Heslin Kim, Highstreet founder Travis Wu, Panony Group founder Alyssa Tsai, and Crypto Banter founder Ran Neuner.
Learn more about Vera’s roadmap on its website.
About Vera
It is a decentralized way to rent and mortgage NFTs. Founded in 2021 and backed by Animoca Brands, Vera’s mission is simple: building open, secure and powerful NFT financial products that are equally available to everyone. Using Vera, applications and games can generate new revenue streams, reimagine user experiences and empower communities.
