Navigate, a web3 startup based in Singapore, has raised $7.6 million in a seed fundraising round. The funding was led by Distributed Global which also included Kraken Ventures, Outlier Ventures, hedge fund manager Alan Howard, and others, according to a Navigate announcement made on June 7.
Navigate raised the funding against a simple agreement for future tokens (SAFT) sale. This means that, in exchange for their money, investors will receive Navigate’s native NVG8 currency at a later date.
The company’s business model is to allow users to provide data on its platform in exchange for crypto rewards in the form of the NVG8 coin.
Users can upload data points from IoT sensors that track air pollution, carbon emissions, water pressure, noise levels, utility efficiency, airspace activities, and even network signal strength.
The Navigate Marketplace and Navigate Dapps will make up the Navigate platform. Users will be able to share data on the marketplace, and developers will be able to utilise that data to create decentralised applications on Navigate using Navigate Dapps.
Navigate Maps, a map of major cities, will be the company’s debut application, according to the company. In contrast to existing satellite-based map services, Navigate claims that Maps will be a community-owned app that will be updated on a regular basis utilising data provided by users.
The Navigate platform will be released in stages. The company will also launch a beta version of its marketplace later this month, followed by the mainnet by the end of this year. The initial edition of Navigate Maps is planned to be released in the third quarter of this year.
Navigate has plans to release more similar applications that can be used by a variety of clients.
Read more: Utopia Labs bags $23 million in Series A funding led by Paradigm
