TinyTap, a cool edtech company owned by Animoca Brands, just bagged a sweet $8.5M from big-name investors like Sequoia China and Polygon. According to their CEO, Yogev Shelly, this cash boost takes TinyTap’s value to a whopping $100 million.
This latest funding round is about shaking up the education game with “Web3.” Liberty City Ventures, Kingsway Capital, and Shima Capital also joined the party, and TinyTap got the funds through a mix of equity and tokens. Shelly said they discussed how a tokenomics model could benefit education and creator economies.
Animoca Brands grabbed 84% of TinyTap for around $39M last June. However, even after that deal, TinyTap wanted to keep growing, so they decided to raise more money. Shelly explained that they needed enough cash to keep expanding and to develop the web3 side of their biz.
So, what’s the plan for Web3? TinyTap’s got some big ideas! They want to use locked token-based scholarships that will only unlock PublisherNFTs when something happens on-chain, like finishing a course. They’re also considering giving students custodial wallets to store tokens, claim credentials, and access content.
Shelly thinks this new approach can speed up education. Instead of waiting years to see AI and Web3 taught in schools, they can create education for the future.
And just last week, TinyTap teamed up with Open Campus, a group all about Web3 education. They want to tokenize educational content to help teachers and creators make some money. Binance is even selling Open Campus’s EDU token on its platform.