TRLab, an innovative company merging top-tier art and technology, has announced a $5 million seed funding round led by Hivemind Capital and OKX Ventures.
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TRLab, an innovative company merging top-tier art and technology, has announced a $5 million seed funding round led by Hivemind Capital and OKX Ventures.
TRLab, an innovative company that combines top-tier art with cutting-edge technology, has announced a $5 million seed funding round led by Hivemind Capital Partners and OKX Ventures—both leading investment firms in the blockchain space—with participation from HashKey Capital, the investment arm of HashKey Group.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insights
Li Xin (Chairperson) and Ou Jinqiao (CEO), founders of TRLab
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Women-led TRLab collaborates with top global artists, foundations, and art institutions to launch multiple educational original digital art experiences;
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Founders Li Xin and Ou Jinqiao, drawing on their exceptional experience from leading international auction houses and major contemporary art museums, place interactive experiences at the core of artistic works, exploring new frontiers in the digital realm;
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The funding will be used to expand the two-year-old startup’s influence in international markets and continue co-developing new projects with global artists, foundations, and institutions.
September 6, 2023 — TRLab, an innovative company merging top-tier art with cutting-edge technology, has announced a $5 million seed funding round led by Hivemind Capital Partners and OKX Ventures, two pioneering investment firms in the blockchain space, with participation from HashKey Capital, the investment arm of HashKey Group.
This successful fundraising marks another endorsement from the capital markets for this female-founded and led team. Founded in 2021 by Christie’s non-executive vice chair Li Xin and TRLab CEO Ou Jinqiao, TRLab was incubated by Dragonfly Capital and has received strong support from prominent art collectors and tech entrepreneurs, including Pace Gallery, Animoca Brands, BAI Capital, the world's largest online art marketplace Artsy, and the founder of the leading contemporary art institution RAM (Rockbund Art Museum).
Since its founding in New York and Hong Kong, TRLab has been dedicated to collaborating with artists, foundations, and art institutions to incubate and produce high-quality interactive digital art experiences for collectors. To date, TRLab has launched multiple projects in collaboration with mainstream fashion magazine Vogue, the foundation of one of the most important sculptors of the 20th century, Alexander Calder—the Calder Foundation, contemporary artist Cai Guo-Qiang, and Rhizome, a digital art organization affiliated with New York’s New Museum. TRLab’s mission is to integrate online learning, interactive challenges, and digital art collecting, making contemporary art and art history more accessible to audiences in the digital age. Using a “play-to-learn” approach, TRLab has introduced Alexander Calder’s rich creative legacy to participants from over 60 countries, and its multi-phase collaboration with the Calder Foundation will continue through 2024.
The new funds will be used to bring on more artists, foundations, and cultural institutions as partners, expand TRLab’s market share internationally, and integrate new technologies to enhance the digital art collecting experience. Within the next six months, TRLab will launch several new digital art experiences with renowned artists and foundations and will host its first physical art exhibition in November this year.
Ou Jinqiao, Co-Founder and CEO of TRLab said: "We are honored to receive the recognition and support from Hivemind and OKX Ventures through our innovative approach to art collecting. TRLab has established a unique identity in the digital art space, building a solid foundation through our mission-driven work and uncovering even greater growth potential. This also demonstrates the significant public demand for digital-first art experiences, and our original digital art projects continue to deepen people’s understanding of art and artists."
Hivemind and OKX Ventures both view TRLab’s distinctive values as key factors in their investment decisions and will provide strategic support to TRLab in the U.S. and Asian markets respectively.
Zhang Yechuan, Founder and Managing Partner of Hivemind Capital Partners said: "Hivemind believes TRLab has the power to lead a cultural renaissance in the digital art era, perfectly blending world-renowned artworks with cutting-edge technology. With their visionary team and outstanding partnerships, we are excited to support their mission to pioneer the future of premium digital collecting."
Jeff Ren, Partner at OKX Ventures said: "OKX Ventures firmly believes in the transformative power of art in the digital age. TRLab is democratizing art collecting, and their team is pioneering a new era that combines digital technology with timeless artistic expression. We are proud to support such a mission."
About TRLab
TRLab combines innovative technology with contemporary art to pioneer the future of art collecting. Since its founding in 2021, TRLab has successfully launched digital art collecting experiences in collaboration with leading digital and traditional artists, including the multi-season educational program “Calder Questions” developed with the Calder Foundation; “Your Daytime Explosion,” an interactive collecting journey with contemporary artist Cai Guo-Qiang, which was shortlisted for the 2022 Lumen Prize; and “Vogue Meta-Ocean,” Vogue’s first globally curated digital art collection series. The 2021 limited-edition NFT series “Explode Yourself,” co-developed by TRLab and Cai Guo-Qiang, is now part of the permanent collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).
About Hivemind Capital Partners
Hivemind Capital Partners is an investment firm focused on Web3 and blockchain technology. Hivemind is committed to institutionalizing digital asset investing by combining crypto-native expertise and technology with institutional-grade risk management and practices. Employing a research-driven, multi-strategy approach, Hivemind unlocks the potential of digital assets as an investable asset class by providing carefully curated and scalable advisory services to institutional investors. Founded in 2021 and headquartered in the United States, Hivemind has offices around the world.
About OKX Ventures
OKX Ventures is the investment arm of OKX.com, a leading global trading platform. Focused on identifying the world’s most promising blockchain projects, OKX Ventures supports cutting-edge blockchain innovation and drives the robust development of the global blockchain industry, with an emphasis on long-term structural value investments. OKX Ventures started with an initial capital commitment of $100 million. We are dedicated to helping entrepreneurs build world-class companies that contribute to the blockchain ecosystem and providing blockchain projects with global resources and industry expertise.
About HashKey
HashKey Capital is an institutional-grade asset management firm focused on digital assets and the blockchain industry. As a digital-native, globally oriented fund, HashKey helps traditional institutions, Web3 founders, and top talent capture high-growth opportunities in the blockchain sector. As one of the most influential and largest crypto funds globally and an early institutional investor in Ethereum, HashKey Capital has managed over $1 billion in assets since inception and has invested in more than 500 projects across infrastructure, tools, and applications. With deep insights into the global blockchain landscape, the HashKey team has built an ecosystem connecting entrepreneurs, investors, developers, community members, and regulators.
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