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For-profit social impact NFT startup Metagood announced it has closed a $5 million Pre-Seed round of funding.
Bill Tai, co-founder and chairman of Metagood, told TechCrunch, “The idea behind our creation of this company is that using NFT as a means of expression, everyone is doing good things for each other, and good things are tokenized and can be exchanged.”
The company launched its flagship NFT series, ChainMonkey, to create tokenized value for community members. It also aims to provide members with opportunities to promote and fund social good projects through the DAO, which raised 2,000 ETH in just one year, he added.
Metagood co-founder Amanda Terry said that over the 10-week period of “Season 1,” its DAO distributed 70 ETH to 42 projects, roughly $90,000 at current prices. Related projects include using OnChainMonkey's artwork to fund the restoration of a skate park in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and helping Afghan refugees evacuate to Italy.
Investors in the latest round include Animoca Brands, Morgan Creek Capital founder and CEO Mark Yusko and Virgin Group investment manager Freddie Andrews, among others.
“We attract people who want to make a positive impact on the world,” Terry said, “Many of our investors have had hugely successful careers and they want to use their influence to do other good things in the world. "
Previous investors include many celebrities or executives, such as actor Owen Wilson, Virgin Unite chairman Holly Branson, Rotten Tomatoes co-founders Patrick Lee and Stephen Wang, and encryption industry figures Dapper Labs co-founder Roham Gharegozlou, Axie Infinity co-founder Jeffrey Zirlin and Sebastien Borget, co-founder of The Sandbox, among others.
Terry said, “Holly Branson sees this as a vehicle to expand what she does. It’s a common theme here too. Culturally, we attract well-wishers who want to lead the world in a better place.”
Funds from this round will be used to grow the company, recruit new talent, and build OnChainMonkey’s community and tools. “We were profitable before the Pre-Seed round, but we want to continue to grow. Our initial mint and secondary transaction revenue totaled over 4600 ETH.”
Metagood believes that Web3 can be a positive force in creating an economy of good karma, where people are rewarded for doing good. The startup aims to achieve returns through charitable donations and the price of OnChainMonkey NFTs. "As karma spreads, so does the economy."
According to Tai, the DAO model allows the highest amount of funds to be used to support projects, and it is fast. The aforementioned skate park is an example of "a small charitable grant, which is difficult to manage for a large organization, but we were able to do in a few days"."
