Beeple-Backed Render Network Raises $30M From Solana, Alameda, More
Key Points:
The decentralized network provides 3D rendering power for NFTs and more. It is used by artists such as Beeple and Pak.
Render Network, a peer-to-peer service for providing 3D rendering power, has raised $30 million.
Leading NFT artist Beeple is an advisor to Render Network, which other notable NFT creators use as well.
Render Network’s blockchain-driven 3D rendering network has been used by an array of creators during this year’s NFT market boom, including famed artist and advisor to the project, Mike “Beeple” Winkelmann. Now, with an eye toward the growing metaverse, Render Network has announced a fresh round of funding.
Led by Multicoin Capital, Render Network’s “strategic” funding round also featured participation from the Solana Foundation, Alameda Research, Sfermion, and angel investors Bill Lee and Vinny Lingham. Multicoin confirmed to Decrypt that it is a $30 million round, bringing Render’s total funding to date to $50 million.
Jules Urbach, founder of Render Network and CEO of OTOY—creator of OctaneRender software—told Decrypt that an estimated $800 million worth of NFTs sold to date have tapped into Render Network for 3D rendering needs. In addition to Beeple, notable NFT artists such as Pak, FVCKRENDER, and Blake Kathryn use Render Network.
An NFT is effectively a deed of ownership to a unique digital item, including images, video files, video game objects, and more. The market swelled in 2021, with an estimated $22 billion worth of trading volume so far this year, per data from DappRadar.
Render Network originally launched on Ethereum and recently added layer-2 scaling solution Polygon. In November, the project announced plans to integrate the Solana blockchain as well, and Urbach held a presentation at Solana’s Breakpoint conference.
Urbach suggested that Beeple and Render Network aim to help artists share work more fully with collectors—to enable access to day-to-day artwork created in between major NFT drops, for example, and to let fans explore within 3D-generated artwork in a more immersive way.
“[It’s] the concept that everything you do that's recorded on-chain is part of your identity, and the concept of social tokens or tokenization of your work as a human, an artist, or a creator beyond a very simple, one-dimensional output of an NFT itself,” he said. “Mike's really motivated to help define that, and we're here on a technical platform level to enable that.”