Arca invests in Spaceport's $3.6 million raise

Spaceport, a web3 intellectual property protocol, raised $3.6 million in pre-seed round co-led by Arca, Decasonic and Crit Ventures, the venture arm of game developer Com2us.

Infinity Ventures Crypto, FBG Capital and Republic Asia are also among the investors that participated in the round, according to an announcement.

Spaceport is designed to help creators, brands and agencies monetize their intellectual property. 

"I think unlike a lot of other folks in this space that saw an opportunity within web3, we saw an opportunity in the real world and web3 was just the best solution to solve it," said Le Zhang, co-founder and CEO of Spaceport, in an interview with The Block.

What's wrong with the existing lP processes?

Zhang explains that the monetization of intellectual property is just too difficult currently. Every time a creator wants to monetize their IP they need to negotiate a new deal often getting lawyers and accountants involved each time, Zhang said.

"It's an extremely tedious process," Zhang said.

Spaceport aims to use blockchain technology to make this more efficient and cost effective for creators. Its first application Spaceport Core will enable creators to upload their works, convert the assets to be web3-compatible and then put that IP catalogue in front of brands to secure licensing deals and get contracts signed with royalties going back to the creator via the application, Zhang said. 

"You can think of it as like a multi-stack solution solving the entire licensing process," Zhang said.

A decades old problem

Spaceport has already brought on board several notable partners, which it will reveal in the coming months, Zhang said. The protocol leverages a series of Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible smart contracts and will launch on Ethereum first, but Zhang is also exploring EVM compatible chains such as Polygon.

The round closed in the spring following the collapse of Terra-Luna, Zhang said.

“Spaceport unblocks a key challenge for creators to adopt Web3 by aligning value creation with their IP. Their licensing infrastructure is accessible, easy to use and drives accretive revenues,” said Paul Hsu, founder and CEO of Decasonic, in a statement. “I see large potential today for smart contracts to improve the licensing process and contracts.”

The funds from the raise will be used to hire talent and for product development, according to the announcement.

"This has been a decade's old problem that they've been waiting for someone to come around and solve," Zhang said. "And so the feedback has been incredible even without our digital presence fully up and running."