5 Indian startups in the NFT space
The NFT frenzy in India is developing each day. Artists love to feature their work as NFT in specialised NFT marketplaces over Facebook, YouTube, and other online media platforms.
Undoubtedly, Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are the hottest sensation in the digital asset community today. NFTs convert digital art and other collectibles into distinctive, visible assets that are simple to transact on the blockchain. Launched in 2017, NFTs seem to have had a rapid rise as compared to other digital currencies, gaining immense traction among Gen Z and millennials. Presently, the most popular blockchain for NFT is the Ethereum blockchain.
In October 2021, 571,000 NFT wallets were made, a 19-times increase over October 2020, as per a Reuters assessment. Additionally, NFT deals will reach $80 billion by 2022. The Block Research firm reports that NFT exchanging volume significantly increased from $2.67 billion December 2021 to $6.86 billion in January 2022.
Various startups in India are currently banking on the burgeoning influence of NFTs in the country. NFT is a market that has presented businesses, investors, consumers, and ordinary people with incredible opportunities. The NFT turned into another reality in India in 2022 when increasingly more Indian dignitaries, including actors, sportspersons, performers, and others, blew people's minds towards this digital token to initiate their own NFT compilations.
Cricketers such as Virender Sehwag, Zaheer Khan, Rishabh Pant, and Samriti Mandhana, and bollywood celebs like Amitabh Bachchan, Salman Khan, Sunny Leone, and Vishal Malhotra, have created their own NFTs. According to various reports, India is potentially the largest market for NFTs.
Here is a list of NFT marketplaces in India that allow artists to create and trade tokens - :
WazirX NFT marketplace
WazirX NFT marketplace is a platform to trade your tokens and cryptocurrency and has integrated NFTs on its platform with help from the Bancor Network. Buy, sell, exchange, and convert across a large number of ERC-20 NFTs without storing assets on any trade. In March 2021, launched its NFT space.
Nischal Shetty, Co-Founder and CEO WazirX
Led by Sandesh B Suvarna and actor/producer Vishakha Singh, the WazirX NFT Marketplace is a spot created by WazirX to trade NFTs using its native currency, WRX, exclusively for the art industry. WazirX NFT Marketplace Clone Script is applicable to many domains.
The platform has over 10 million users. The startup was acquired by the world's largest crypto trading stage, Binance, in April 2021.
The platform picked 15 trendy artists and creators to introduce the primary set of NFTs. The enrolment included several Indian artists, ranging from digital to noticeable artists and muralist photographers.
Diginoor
Founded by Yash Rathod and Shaamil Karim in 2021, Diginoor was launched with the aim of making NFT adoption mainstream in India.
Delaware-based is a diverse and secure digital platform to buy, own, and sell digital art from Indian cinema. Diginoor has sold out its first NFT collection from Rajnikanth's Sivaji.
Diginoor founders Shaamil Karim (left) and Yash Rathod
The platform recently raised $1 million in its seed funding round, and saw participation from Kunal Shah, Contrary Capital, Polygon Fund and others.
In an earlier conversation with YourStory, Shaamil Karim, Co-founder and CEO, Diginoor, said: “Earlier, we used to buy playing cards of cricketers, and we used to trade and play games with friends using the cards. Now, NFTs are becoming the next wave of fandom, and with cinema, people are willing to spend."
Rario
Founded by Ankit Wadhwa and Sunny Bhanot in 2021, is a Gurgaon-based digital collectible platform for cricket fans to collect and exchange cricket memorabilia on the NFTs.
Rario is based on blockchain technology. These NFTs allow fans an opportunity to claim ownership of the most loved bits of cricket history in a substantial, verifiable way. Cricket fans can interact with one another to feature their collection or exchange their Rario cards.
Australian batsman Aaron Finch is the latest addition in the growing list of cricket stars who have turned to NFTs to preserve iconic moments from the field in the digital world.
Vibranium
Founded by Emmanuel Digal, Hesan Kumar, and Misan Kumar in 2021, Vibranium is a Bangalore-based blockchain technology powered non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace.
gives artists the opportunity to sell and tap into assets from around the world.
In an earlier conversation with YourStory, Hesan Kumar, co-founder of Vibranium said, “It was around early 2020 when I came across NFTs and started trading on OpenSea, one of the largest NFT marketplaces. The concept was and still is picking up in the country. However, we noticed that there weren’t many Indian players or marketplaces for trading NFTs and decided to cash on this opportunity."
BeyondLife.club
Founded by Arun Pandey and powered by , BeyondLife.club is an NFT marketspace that facilitates creators and brands to curate exclusive NFTs.
BeyondLife.club came into the spotlight with the launch of Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan's NFTs. The megastar himself curates #AmitabhNFT. The startup converges popular NFTs from Amitabh and legendary creator Stan Lee's Chakra Invincible collections.
Edited by Anju Narayanan