Decent Raises $3.5M To Help Music Industry Adopt Web3 Seamlessly – AlleyWatch

When you purchase a song on iTunes, you are only purchasing the right to listen to that song. One of the most compelling aspects of blockchain and NFT use in the music industry is the built-in provenance option. Moving on-chain not only enables innovative funding, ownership and licensing models, but also provides opportunities for artists to connect with their community of fans in new ways. decent A no-code infrastructure platform and SDK that enables the music industry and artists to build a variety of web3 applications with little effort and expertise. Creator HQ is the company’s flagship product that allows both creators and developers to create his NFTS and smart contracts on his EMV compatible chain. The platform is open source and includes AI generation of his NFT images using DALL-E, dynamic token pricing, rentable tokens, financial backing tokens, staking, and more to streamline pre- and post-mint processes. provide integration. Founded by a former banker and current artist, the platform empowers artists to effortlessly exercise their ownership and copyright rights, while democratizing monetization and fan engagement, leaving musicians worried about the end of their business. It’s designed to give you the flexibility to focus on your creations without worrying.

alley watch caught up with a decent co-CEO Charlie Durbin To learn more about the business, the company’s strategic plans, recent funding rounds and more…

Who are your investors and how much did you raise?
We have raised a $3.5 million seed round. Archetype, Y Combinator (YC W22), Circle Ventures, Palm Tree Crypto, Road Capital, Stateless VC, AngelDAO, Coinlist, OrangeDAO, Soma CapitalWhen magic fund Featuring Ilya Fushman, Kleiner Perkins, Cooper Turley, Coop Records, Ian Lapham, Uniswap, Eleni Steinman, Loop Crypto and Nick Pappageorge. Delphi Digital, Sapphire Ventures, Rico Mallozzi, and a few others.

What products or services does Decent offer?
Decent has no-code applications and SDKs that make it easy for anyone to build innovative web3 applications and NFT releases.

What inspired the launch of Decent?
our co-founder Xander Carlson A full-time artist (signed to Sony’s Palm Tree Records), he has traveled the music industry from independent artist to label signings to touring with Kygo and Palm Tree Crew.
Our vision is also based on our experience in M&A for companies in the music industry at an investment bank and looking at the financial/analytical side of the market. That is, despite each artist’s fan base growing exponentially, the artist’s financial position remains constrained and unchanged over the years.

How is decent different?
We believe that easy-to-use UX tools will ignite mainstream adoption of cryptorails, allowing creators and developers to monetize their work autonomously. This is especially important in a historically closed industry, where creators earn as offshoots of platforms. To that end, we believe infrastructure is our core product and take great pride in developing new primitives that leverage the unique innovations and characteristics of blockchain development.
The music industry needs new monetization channels for artists, and that requires new tools. New monetizable applications rely on permissionless access to music and development with it (note: only voluntary access, not free access), with automatic and transparent flow of funds. Is required. We believe our infrastructure is the foundation for rapid and complex innovation in the music industry. To drive adoption, a true full-stack offering open-source smart contracts, a JavaScript SDK wrapper that allows developers to implement functionality without knowing Solidity, and Decent Creator HQ that can be used by creators of no-code applications I have developed an implementation.
At the product level – We are the only full-stack, cross-chain NFT creation productOther Differentiators:
Equipped with a unique cross-chain indexer

• We have the most unique smart contracts available
• We work with both independent creators/developers
• Large enterprise for custom implementations

There are many proprietary applications that share abstracted user information and payment rails. Despite enabling a multitude of unique applications, we believe it is very important to avoid audience fragmentation.

What is Decent’s target market and size?

Since all of our tools are based on NFTs, the NFT market is arguably the closest comp, growing up to $21 billion today at a CAGR of 34%.
# It’s a little old here, but we hit $160 million in music NFT sales. Since the subsector grows fastest and performs best in bear markets, we assume that NFTs’ share of total sales will increase significantly to around 1-5% of the market (total estimates , which is our working assumption). We believe music NFTs are a billion dollar market that can capture a significant share with a differentiated approach and best-in-class tools.

what is your business model?

We plan to start charging premium SDK + API endpoints + premium features in HQ + sales commission through HQ. The protocol will likely be free for developers to use and contribute to, and anything deemed commoditized or easily replicated features will remain free.

How are you preparing for a potential economic slowdown?

To maximize the runway, we are very conservative when it comes to hiring. The strategy is to quietly capture the market and the mind share of market participants so that the next bull cycle can fully capitalize on that achievement.

What was the fundraising process like?

We were part of YC’s W22 cohort, so we were fortunate to be able to use Demo Day as a catalyst for investor interest and raise in a relatively structured process. Everyone’s experience is different, but we were really lucky to have Archetype leading the round early. I was able to complete a great round with their help.

What was the biggest challenge you faced in raising capital?

Skepticism about the music market, new mechanics, more economical approaches. popular story w. NFTs were and still are the most interesting new ways to show patronage. We believe that NFTs have more interesting implementations. But we still hold the burden of proof on that proposition.

What factors in your business are driving investors to write you checks?

The investors we ended up going with believed in the papers outlined above as well. trusted our team.

What milestones do you plan to achieve in the next six months?

We would like to see 100 apps built using the Decent protocol.

What advice can you give to New York companies that haven’t injected fresh capital into their banks?

Ship hacky MVPs of interesting features to quickly validate or discard assumptions. It also provides proven traction against sticky objects. Also, especially in web3, many protocols (including ours!) give permission to developers and content producers. These are a great way to bootstrap your project.

Ship hacky MVPs of interesting features to quickly validate or discard assumptions. It also provides proven traction against sticky objects. Also, especially in web3, many protocols (including ours!) give permission to developers and content producers. These are a great way to bootstrap your project.

Where do you see the company going now in the near future?

We focus on cross-chain middleware and new smart contracts to solve scalability, improve the developer experience through incremental SDK improvements, and empower creators by revealing HQ innovations.

Where is your favorite coffee shop or location in the city to hold a meeting?

Newsbar Union Square.

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