Nuva Digital, incubated by Animoca Brands and Nuva Labs (formerly Provenance Blockchain Labs), raised $5.2 million in a seed round to build its real-world asset yield platform, Nuva Finance.
Nuva Digital's CEO, Anthony Moro, told The Block that this funding round was led by Morgan Creek Digital, with Ulu Ventures as another major investor. Moro said the round was completed in one go and marked the startup’s first external financing.
Moro noted that Nuva Digital began fundraising in the first quarter of this year and has now completed this round. Moro stated that the financing structure was a priced seed equity round with warrants, but he declined to disclose Nuva Digital’s valuation.
Moro stated that as part of this funding round, Sachin Jaitly, general partner at Morgan Creek Digital, will join Nuva Digital’s board. Jaitly will join Mike Cagney, co-founder and executive chairman of Figure Technologies, and Yi Xiu, co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands, Moro added.
What is Nuva Digital?
Nuva Digital describes itself as a software development company, and its upcoming RWA platform, Nuva Finance, aims to allow users to earn yields by depositing real or virtual assets into vaults.Tokenized assets
Nuva Finance states: "When you deposit USDC, the vault issues nvAsset tokens representing your proportional share. The vault’s total assets and token supply adjust with each participation; you are not purchasing from a fixed inventory. Vault-level returns are reflected over time in the price of nvAsset tokens, representing your principal plus accumulated earnings."
In August last year, Nuva Digital stated that the platform would initially offer nuYLDS and nuHELOCs vaults, backed by two on-chain RWA assets from Figure Technologies: YLDS is an SEC-registered yield-stablecoin security, and HELOCs are fixed-rate home equity lines of credit issued by Figure Lending LLC, which have raised over $16 billion to date.
Moro noted that the platform is self-custodial and aims to disrupt traditional alternative asset models, including companies such as iCapital, CAIS, and Nasdaq Private Market, by enabling direct connections between asset issuers and users.
“Nuva’s market model solves fragmentation by creating a simple, unified experience that allows anyone to access top-tier RWA vaults,” said Yat Siu of Animoca Brands. “Tokenized RWA represents one of the most significant opportunities in finance, with its value projected to reach trillions of dollars within a decade by unlocking liquidity and accessibility for institutional-grade assets.”
Moro declined to disclose the platform's launch schedule. Nuva Digital also plans to launch the NUVA "utility" token, and Moro similarly declined to reveal the token's purpose or launch schedule.
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