Sure the latest initiatives from the Teslas, Apples and Googles of the industry tend to dominate the tech news space — and with good reason. Still, the tech titans aren’t the only ones bringing innovation to the sector.
In an effort to highlight up-and-coming startups, Built In has launched The Future 5 across 11 major U.S. tech hubs. Each quarter, we will feature five tech startups, nonprofits or entrepreneurs in each of these hubs who just might be working on the next big thing. You can check out last quarter’s NYC round-up here.
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The world of Web3 is an ever-changing sector of tech, one that is oftentimes evolving faster than regulations can be put into effect. By default, some startups in the space are working to simplify the industry with easy-to-understand business models. This approach lies in the heart of Brooklyn-based Voice, a non-fungible token (NFT) platform for artists and creators with a focus on underrepresented artist communities.
On the Voice platform, digital art or NFTs have no limitations. Artists can convert their photography, sculptures, animations, street art and performance art into NFTs and sell them on the platform.
Voice launched in 2020 with $150 million in capital from its parent company Block.One, the creator of blockchain software EOSIO. Last year, Voice launched its beta version and has since brought over 160,000 artists onto the platform and distributed over $1 million in artist earnings.
The vision [of] Voice emerged as something quite different: a platform to uplift the artists themselves.”
While the emerging platform is seeing success, Voice’s CTO William Anderson said that prior to him joining the company in April of 2021, Voice originally operated as a social media platform.
“I knew it needed to change into something completely different,” Anderson told Built In via email. “All my life I’ve been an artist [and collector], but my career has been in engineering management. When I was approached to take the lead on the engineering team for Voice and help pivot the product and the company … I realized that this was a chance for me to merge those three parts of my life together: art, collecting and software engineering.”
Anderson initially joined Voice as the vice president of engineering and after taking his new vision for Voice to market, he moved on to be the company’s CTO.
“In April of 2021, the idea of unique digital collectibles was really trending, but what hadn’t taken off yet was finding ways to bring sincere artists — who were creating meaningful and thought-provoking art — into the NFT scene,” Anderson said. “The vision [of] Voice emerged as something quite different: a platform to uplift the artists themselves.”
While artists can independently join the Voice platform, the company also has residency programs that it uses to partner with organizations and provide stipends to pay artists to create work under a certain theme.
Anderson said Voice recently partnered with Street Theory, a New York-based street art group, on a collection that benefited Coalition for the Homeless. Other partnerships are in place with institutions like the New York Academy of the Art, in which Voice plans to help bring traditional artists into the world of NFTs.
As Voice continues to grow, the company is hiring a few software engineers and aims to bring on a technical project manager to help lead its blockchain-focused efforts.
