1confirmation backs new NFT startup built for music artists in $2.2 million round

1confirmation, the investment firm backed by Peter Thiel and Mark Cuban, announced Thursday an investment in non-fungible token (NFT) project Catalog.

The raise, which officially closed in late June, injects $2.2 million of fresh capital into the project. Other investors in the round include Inflection and Delphi Digital. The investment is part of 1confirmation's second fund. The firm recently raised $125 million for its third fund to back early-stage crypto companies.

Catalog aims to serve a specific corner of the NFT market: independent music artists. The startup says it has lined up over 100 independent artists, who have earned in aggregate more than $213,234 selling records through the platform.

"We think music needs it's own space both aesthetically & functionally – artists want to drop their music where people are coming to listen to music, on a platform built for it, not amongst thousands of pengus and apes and deviant art," said Michael McKain.

In a sense, it is a blockchain-based version of Bandcamp, a platform through artists can upload music for free and have more control over sales. The Web3 format aims to give artists even more control over those sales and allows them to collect more in proceeds, the company says.

"Artists collect 100% on primary sales and collect the creator share (Zora feature), set by them, on secondary sales," McKain added.