Get to know the three-year-old fintech company that aims to increase crypto adoption by making digital asset transactions as seamless as possible.
If you’ve read news about celebrities buying NFTs, you’ve probably often seen a company called MoonPay attached to them that helped facilitate the purchases.
MoonPay is a fintech company that launched in 2019 with a mission to increase cryptocurrency adoption. The company builds payment infrastructure for the crypto market and acts as a gateway to digital assets. MoonPay is most known for its NFT Checkout software solution that enables users to buy NFTs with credit cards, debit cards, Apple Pay, and other forms of digital payments.
Think of MoonPay as the PaPal for crypto transactions.
With that in mind, let’s take a deeper look at how MoonPay got its start and why celebrities trust the growing tech startup to facilitate a growing number of Web3 purchases.
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The MoonPay Origin Story
Miami-based MoonPay was co-founded by CEO Ivan Soto-Wright, and Chief Engineer Victor Faramond. Since closing two major venture capital rounds, the crypto payments service has been in a significant hiring push, expanding globally and launching new products and offerings.
MoonPay has since delivered more than $2 billion worth of crypto assets, has more than five million customers worldwide, and supports over 80 digital asset classes.
The platform has grown particularly popular over the past year because of its convenience; users don’t need a crypto wallet to make purchases through MoonPay, and can sign onto the platform through an existing Google account. On the backend, MoonPay handles buying the necessary crypto assets to complete an NFT purchase, then invoices a customer directly. This on-ramp, off-ramp service — that is, exchanging fiat currency for cryptocurrency and then back again — makes purchasing digital assets a seamless process.
Celebrities such as Post Malone, Madonna, Paris Hilton, Justin Bieber, Snoop Dogg, Ashton Kutcher, Gwyneth Paltrow, and more have used MoonPay’s services to purchase NFTs, most notably from the Bored Ape Yacht Club community. In Post Malone’s music video for “One Right Now,” you can quite literally see the superstar artist purchasing a Bored Ape using MoonPay’s platform.
Notable stars aren’t just using MoonPay’s platform because they trust its services, however; they are investing in it, too. The fintech company closed an $87 million financing round from more than 60 high-profile investors, including Steve Aoki, Justin Bieber, Snoop Dogg, Champ Medici, Maria Sharapova, Drake, Guy Oseary’s Sound Ventures, The Weeknd, and Gwyneth Paltrow’s Kinship Ventures.
The complete list of investors is listed here.
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“Web3 is radically changing the way we approach the business of entertainment, sports, and music,” Soto-Wright said in a press release. “Hollywood is using smart contracts and blockchain technology to assert their creative intellectual property rights. Major global sports franchises have used digital tokens and NFT collectibles to transform fan engagement. And recording artists are beginning to explore how NFTs can give them more control over royalty rights. These are the underpinnings of a creator economy renaissance, and our strategic investors are helping to lead that movement. We’re honored to work with them to help onboard the world to Web3.”
Before closing its financing round earlier this year, MoonPay raised $555 million at a $3.4 billion valuation in November 2021 in an all-equity Series A round led by Coatue and Tiger Global. The Web3 company has raised $642 million in venture capital since its inception. MoonPay’s Series A may be the biggest the crypto industry has seen, particularly coming from a bootstrapped startup.
HyperMint
MoonPay launched a new service in June called HyperMint, a developer-friendly self-service platform that lets anyone create, manage, and mint NFTs at scale. The company, which called this new offering “AWS for NFTs” in a blog announcement, created HyperMint after noticing the lack of user-friendly NFT infrastructure offerings.
At the product’s launch, Snoop Dogg’s reimaged Death Row Records announced that it’s using HyperMint to run its token-gated storefront. Notably, Universal Pictures is also using the new platform to explore creating utility around NFTs.
Partnerships
MoonPay has a growing network of more than 250 affiliate partners that have integrated its NFT Checkout service into crypto wallets and exchanges, applications, and websites. Customers can always use the company’s services directly on its site or through partner offerings, including MetaMask, Bitcoin Wallet, Binance DEX, NFT Trader, and Bitcoin.org.
Most recently, MoonPay announced that OpenSea added NFT Checkout to provide users with an easier and quicker purchase process.
BFF, the Web3 community empowering and educating women and non-binary individuals, named MoonPay as the official onboarding partner for its inaugural in-person events series kicking off this month.
What’s Next?
Soto-Wright said MoonPay aspires to become a public company despite the continued downturn across the crypto market. Since MoonPay’s platform supports a variety of digital assets, the company’s founders are confident it will continue to thrive.
We’ll be watching to see if and when MoonPay makes its IPO dreams come true.
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