Arianee raises $21 million to bring luxury NFTs to the Metaverse

Arianee raises $21 million to bring luxury NFTs to the Metaverse

The "utility NFT" pioneer is teaming up with The Sandbox after an extensive Series A.

Paris-based Arianee, a platform for linking non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to luxury brands, has closed a €20 million ($21 million) Series A funding round led by Tiger Global.

A pioneer of so-called utility NFTs tied to the origin and ownership of luxury goods, Arianee's vision now extends to creating digital desirability and reinventing customer relationship management (CRM) for the Metaverse.

"We have developed an end-to-end solution for brands to create NFTs, distribute them and use tokens and wallets to build a new CRM, new loyalty programs, personalization options and a Metaverse implementation," Arianee CEO Pierre Nicolas Hurstel said in an interview.

An NFT distributed to the community of a particular fashion type, for example, could be mapped to a corresponding digital garment in The Sandbox's Metaverse, with which Arianne is partnering, Hurstel explained.

Arianee closed a $9.5 million seed round in March 2021, with participation from the government-affiliated French Investment Bank (Bpifrance). The company's Ethereum-based offering is used by companies such as Printemps, Breitling, Groupe Casino, Vacheron Constantin, Paris Fashion Week, Panerai and IWC.

From the startup's early days working with the lead developer of the ERC-721 NFT token standard, William Entriken, to its current Metaverse deployments, Arianee's goal has remained the same, Hurstel said.

"NFTs will be the new anchor in the relationship between brands and their communities," he said. "Not only will they be more powerful than any other type of digital tool, but they will allow people to take back control of their digital presence and take back their data."