The Easy Company raises $14.2 million to create “an Instagram-like experience for NFTs”

The lingo and mechanisms of crypto are so complex that some people feel like they need a dictionary in order to keep up. Now, there’s a startup looking to simplify the space. As its name implies, The Easy Company is building a crypto wallet that caters to beginners by blending NFT collections with social media.

According to TechCrunch, The Easy Company has supported its flagship product with a $14.2 million seed round. Backers included Lobby Capital, Relay Ventures, 6th Man Ventures, Tapestry VC, Upside, and Scribble Ventures, as well as individual investors with ties to Instagram, Twitter, and other tech companies.

For the young company, accessibility will be the name of the game. “We’re very focused on building the consumer layer,” Easy Co-Founder and CEO Mike Dougherty told TechCrunch. “We thought of the next chapter of web3 by mainstream adoption and usability.”

To achieve that goal, The Easy Company will blend the social networks of Web 2.0 with the decentralized assets of Web3. Wallets created with Easy are identified by usernames rather than strings of numbers and letters. Easy profiles can be linked to other social platforms — just as Instagram

, Twitter, and other tech giants now let users link to their NFT assets.

The Easy Company isn’t the only firm looking to educate crypto noobs through social systems. Another young startup, Revel.xyz, just raised $7.8 million to gamify NFT collections. In Easy’s case, the goal is to create “an Instagram-like experience for NFTs in a wallet,” as Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer Kevin Swint told TechCrunch.

With several crypto exchanges enduring layoffs and FTX in shambles, it’s a tough time for blockchain innovation. By opening up decentralized technology to the masses, The Easy Company wants to become a Web3 success story. The beta version of the Easy wallet is now available on the company’s website.