TinyTap, a subsidiary of Animoca Brands Corporation Ltd, has raised US$8.5 million from investors including Sequoia China, Liberty City Ventures, Kingsway Capital, Shima Capital, Polygon and GameFi Ventures to support the company’s development in the educational technology (edtech) space.
The investment will allow TinyTap to expand its successful Web2 platform into the Web3 space which, according to Animoca, will improve earning opportunities for teachers and enable parents and communities to support and promote their preferred educational material.
Leveraging NFTs for educational purposes
"Teachers and educators are among the most important content creators and contributors in society, and yet their wages typically do not reflect their critical importance,” Animoca Brands co-founder and executive chair Yat Siu said.
“This is why we’re incredibly excited at the Web3 opportunities that TinyTap is exploring in the field of education.
“Having already succeeded in building a Web2 education platform, TinyTap is now supercharging its efforts using NFTs, making it possible for educators to better generate equity from their work and link up with co-publishers who can handle the promotion of their courses, all while offering students enhanced learning materials."
TinyTaps launched its Web3 strategy in 2022 with two auctions of Publisher NFTs, which generated 243 Ethereum or US$352,000 (at time of auction).
Publish NFTs represent co-publishing rights to one TinyTap Course, which is a curated bundle of educational games made on the TinyTap platform by one teacher in one specific subject.
When they are sold, the proceeds are shared between the course creators and the NFT buyers assume the role of co-publishers.
The idea is that buyers share in the benefits generated from co-publishing efforts in return for promoting and marketing the associated courses.
Decentralised ownership and distribution
"TinyTap helps teachers to actualise great ideas into educational content that can be accessed regardless of location – for example, one of the courses I bought was adapted for Japan,” said Misa Matsuzaki, an owner of two Publisher NFTs which have earned about US$7,823 from November 2022 to March 2023.
“I did the first translation and voice-over myself with the help of the TinyTap team. I look forward to seeing how Japan will welcome these exciting new possibilities in education.
“I would like to see more use cases like TinyTap Publisher NFTs, which are so much more interesting than just having NFTs sitting in our wallet!"
TinyTap expects this distribution of rights and responsibilities to benefit creators by freeing them to focus on generation of content, while TinyTap itself and the Publisher NFT holders focus on distribution and promotion.
"Our Publisher NFTs genesis auctions demonstrated that the Web3 community is well suited and willing to support educators and educational content via this new powerful and equitable incentive system,” TinyTap CEO Yogev Shelly said.
“By pairing educational content creators with interested promoters, we are able to benefit all parties fairly and take a significant step in our goal to put the power of learning back in the hands of educators, students and the community."