Bali (Indonesia)-based Ekta, a company building infrastructure to connect blockchain with the physical world, has announced US$60 million financing from New York-based digital asset investment firm GEM Digital.
The money will be used to continue building its technical teams and resources and develop its NFT marketplace, NFT collections, and hybrid exchange.
Ekta was started by Berwin Tanco in 2021 as a response to the economic crisis caused by the global pandemic. The founding team saw an opportunity to decentralise real-world assets through blockchain technology and offer streamlined access to displaced communities, especially in Southeast Asia.
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The startup builds an ecosystem of platforms and products, including a self-developed NFT marketplace (Ekta NFT marketplace), a hybrid exchange (HYBEX), and NFTs backed by the real-world utility with the mission of improving lives and communities.
The NFT marketplace aims to connect real-world assets and value to the projects offered on its platform. For instance, Ekta Island. Based on an island near Bali, named Gili Gede and owned by the team, Ekta Island consists of 16 hectares of land, 46 hectares of the ocean in its bay, and one of 20 marina licenses issued in the archipelago.
Through NFTs, Ekta develops the island as the world’s first blockchain-fueled physical space, offering fractional investment and everyday people access.
As an endpoint node that rewards operators with crypto, Ekta Portal is another product through which it aims to bridge the real world with blockchain. By activating the device via an Ekta Portal NFT, operators can start earning from a daily rewards pool of 10,000 $EKTA. The rewards are divided by the number of active operators, meaning that the sooner you own one, the more you’ll earn. Owning an Ekta Portal NFT auto whitelists holders for all of Ekta’s NFT offerings, including Ekta Island and MetaTrees.
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MetaTrees is a blockchain game world where players can earn crypto while also playing an active role in preserving real-world natural resources. MetaTrees also incentivises reforestation initiatives on Ekta Island and in partnership with environmental organisations.
Ekta Founder and CEO Berwin Tanco said: “While 10 per cent of people on the internet hold crypto, we aim at onboarding the next 10 per cent by building true utility and value for them.”
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