Web3 licensing protocol Spaceport has raised $3.6 million in a pre-seed funding round led by Arca, Decasonic and CRIT Ventures, the venture capital arm of publicly-traded game developer Com2uS.
Other participants in the pre-seed funding round included Cozomo De Medici, Diaspora Ventures, Infinity Ventures Crypto, FBG Capital, Nextview Ventures, Republic Asia and Valhalla Ventures.
Founded by serial tech entrepreneurs Le Zhang and Lida Tang, Spaceport aims to help creators, brands and agencies monetize their IP with greater velocity and to provide exposure to the metaverse vertical.
The team combines traditional licensing know-how with seasoned Web3 expertise to grow the existing $300B licensing market into a multi-trillion dollar market.
Spaceport is accelerating the growth of the next digital economy by building tools for creators, brands and agencies to monetize their intellectual property. With a mission to break down the real-world limitations of IP, Spaceport offers a universal licensing catalog that enables greater deal velocity and provides exposure to the metaverse vertical.
Le Zhang, Co-Founder and CEO of Spaceport, said: “We built Spaceport to give creators and brands the ability to monetize their IP faster and more easily than ever before.”
“We’re thrilled to have the support of such an incredible lineup of investors and partners and look forward to working together to expand the licensing market and open the door to a new programmatic approach to monetizing IP,” Le Zhang added.
Licensing has traditionally been a pen-and-paper industry where deals can take months to transact. Smaller creators are also locked out of the market due to the overhead involved. Spaceport’s protocol and first application, Spaceport Core, solves these inefficiencies by providing a streamlined, one-stop-shop approach to monetizing IP for creators, brands and agencies.
“Spaceport unblocks a key challenge for creators to adopt Web3 by aligning value creation with their IP. Their licensing infrastructure is accessible, easy to use and drives accretive revenues,” said Paul Hsu, Founder and CEO of Decasonic, a Web3 native venture fund focused on mainstream adoption of blockchain. “I see large potential today for smart contracts to improve the licensing process and contracts.”
“Com2uS is fully committed to supporting the future of Web3 and its evolution into the mainstream,” said Kyu Lee, CEO of Com2uS USA and Partner at CRIT Ventures. “The licensing infrastructure that Spaceport is building will be fundamental to bringing the world’s favorite brands and games onto the blockchain.” Com2uS is the owner and creator of Summoners War, a multi-billion dollar gaming franchise, as well as the producers of titles including MLB 9 Innings, Ace Fishing: Wild Catch, and NBA Now.
Spaceport has already granted private access to their products through significant partnerships with media, gaming, and consumer goods companies that want faster, more streamlined licensing deals along with metaverse exposure. The team plans to use the funds raised to hire exceptional talent, supercharge partnerships with notable IP holders and build to a public launch of their products.
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