Prysm, a social investing platform focused on crypto, decentralized finance (DeFi) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), has launched the first public version of its network, armed with $3 million in seed funding.
The round was led by North Island Ventures with participation from Polychain Capital, Reciprocal Ventures, Leminscap, CMT Digital, Free Company, Alameda Ventures, Infinite Capital, Flow Ventures and Drops Foundation, the company announced on Tuesday.
These days, investors in crypto don’t speak to a broker or some Wall Street type; they talk to their friends on social media, or just strangers on the internet. Of course, disruption of the traditional investment advisory model is not new, but “social investing 1.0” isn’t really up to snuff, according to Prysm co-founder Thomas Scaria.
The real network effects of social investing have been hampered until now by inconsistent, siloed and centralized platforms, Scaria said in an interview. Moreover, the next generation of financial value creators will want to truly own their audience and have more direct links to monetization. More like a Substack than an eToro, in other words.
“Web3 enables an entirely new stab at social investing,” Scaria told CoinDesk. “DeFi, for instance, is this connective financial fabric that unlocks new network effects. NFTs let creators build closer relationships with their fans. All this allows creators to own their resumes and their audience, and I think social investing will evolve into a new online economy.”
Users can connect their MetaMask wallet to Prysm, create a profile and stipulate what sort of investments they are interested in, be that non-fungible tokens (NFTs), swing trading or “gem hunting” (finding low-cap coins on platforms like Uniswap). Thereafter relevant investors matching the user’s profile are suggested for them to follow.
The platform also offers a degree of transparency and verification, as Prysm ensures investors have their money where their mouth is, Scaria said. There are also interesting ways that investors are incentivized to leak alpha to their fans.
“We made this ‘idea creator’ where some investor can suggest ideas for his fans to copy,” Scaria said. “They can mint these ideas as one-off NFTs and have scarce access to their superfans. So they might mint just five of these and price them at $500 apiece and only holders of those NFTs have access to this trade idea.”
A slew of angel investors also joined the funding round, including Zane Tackett, Tony Sheng, Imran Khan, Qiao Wang, Clay Robbins, Regan Bozman, Sergei Chan and Marc Weinstein.
