The meme market that is expanding at a rapid pace has caught the eye of numerous venture capital (VC) firms lately. One of the platforms that are seeking to capitalize on this trend is Meme.com, a platform where explorers meet to share their meme discoveries and creations.
This platform announced today it successfully closed a $5 million funding round led by blockchain-focused VC companies Outlier Ventures, Digital Finance Group (DFG), Morningstar, Blockhype and Spark Digital Capital.
Gabby Dizon, the CEO of Altitude Games, and Polygon (Matic) co-founder Sandeep Nailwal also took part in the funding round. Johan Unger, the Ancient Alien at Meme.com, said:
"The vision of a platform that uses crypto to measure the value of things on the Internet has been with us for a long time. Those who’ve been following our community know that memes are at the core of our DNA. We are now doubling down on this with Meme.com."
The platform allows for meme tokens to be staked in order to provide incentives for the community and creators. As Meme.com is essentially a marketplace, each meme has its own valuation and these can then be compared to each other.
For Mattias Tyrberg, Sir Stonks at Meme.com, today’s news is a result of "passion and several years of experience with viral and memetic content."
He says that this sector has now become an "integral part of the Internet." The platform utilizes crypto mechanics and will use raised funds to launch the first meme market platform.
"We believe that humor and memes have the power to connect people and create unique shared experiences," he adds.
The platform enables users to mint memetic tokens. Through crowdsourcing, the content is then supported by the community, which also supports and promotes the most popular content each month. Those that received more support than others receive rewards, which mostly include special artwork in the context of non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
High interest in meme platforms is a result of the widespread attention the NFTs and meme tokens have received lately. In March, the digital artist known as Beeple sold his first series of NFTs for a mouth-watering $69 million.
Similarly, Elon Musk has continued to promote the meme cryptocurrency Dogecoin while his SpaceX company has recently announced a mission to the moon funded entirely by Dogecoin.
DFG’s Head of Investment, Joanna Liang, noted:
"We believe that memes and meme markets, such as Meme.com, are a promising and innovative way to empower users who find or create trends. We have high hopes that Meme.com will push the boundaries of memecoins, NFTs and digital art in unique ways as this sector continues to develop."
Given the soaring demand for both meme cryptocurrency and NFTs, the platform is seeking to take advantage of both markets and their users, as well as attract new users who have had little cause to explore digital assets.