Folks dedicated to the world of NFTs have access to loads of analytics and browsing tools, but none of them really work together. At least, that’s how new startup Curio sees things.
Curio taps into several different sources of data to provide a powerful analytics tool for both browsing and tracking the value of NFTs.
Co-founders Chrys Bader and Sean Dadashi started working on Curio about two years ago, but it wasn’t called Curio back then. They started an anti-loneliness app called Ikaria that was meant to bring people together in a vulnerable and authentic way. Adoption of the app was slow. Around the same time, Dadashi and Bader were starting to get into the web3 space.
“Web2 is pretty saturated in terms of incentives and what drives and motivates people,” said Bader. “Everything’s been done, more or less. Web3 kind of presented this whole new design space where we can create new incentives and motivate people at a more fundamental level than what already exists today.”
They tried to apply that thinking to their social app and, it didn’t go so well. “If you try to add incentives to relationships, things get weird,” Bader said.
That’s when they started thinking about what they could bring to the web3 space. They were particularly interested in NFTs but found the process of browsing them, understanding them and tracking their value tedious and annoying. It required multiple browser windows and information cross referencing.
So they set out to build an all-in-one place for folks to not only look at the art but to track the value of these NFTs and make better decisions.
Curio pulls in information from the OpenSea API and the blockchain itself, with plans to incorporate data from LooksRare soon. The startup beautifies this data to allow users to track rarity, floor, average price per collection, volume and more. Users can dive into a certain collection and get the full info or even filter by traits. For example, users can search the Bored Ape collection for 3D glasses and brown fur to see floor depth, a scatter plot of sales and track real-time sales.
Folks who simply want to see what’s out there today can also browse by the best value or see what’s trending today.
Curio has been in beta with 1,000 users up until today, when it’s launching to the public. As part of the launch, and part of a revenue strategy, the startup is offering an NFT pass called Genesis that gives people lifetime access to Curio’s premium tools.
The company also generates revenue through its Discord bot, which allows server admins to provide on-demand analytics to their Discord communities.
Alexis Ohanian’s Seven Seven Six led Curio’s seed round of $3.7 million, which brings total funding to $5.1 million for the project.
