News & Views
BuzzCast Secures $4.35M Seed Round to Integrate NFTs into Premium Virtual Events
This article was originally published on CoinGeek on October 7, 2021.
Round led by blockchain visionary Ayre Ventures with participation from TheSyndicate.com
Los Angeles, CA – October 7, 2021 – BuzzCast, the premium virtual events platform, today announced that it has closed a $4.35 million seed round that it will use to integrate NFTs into premium virtual events. The round was led by Ayre Ventures with participation from The Syndicate, a group of 9,000+ accredited investors led by Jason Calacanis.
BuzzCast recently emerged from stealth mode as an established player in the high-end of the virtual and hybrid event landscape. The platform is unique in that it delivers a broadcast-quality experience, can scale to support hundreds of thousands of attendees with zero down-time, and supports complex tracks and formats with advanced networking features. BuzzCast clients include global brands and organizations, including Anthem, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, The World Trade and Tourism Council, Just for Laughs, and Uber.
“We are producing high-profile conferences and industry events where the interactions between attendees can change the world or move markets,” said Ryan Byrne, co-founder and CEO of BuzzCast. “Our vision is to make ticketing and transactions highly secure and non-fungible, so there is a clear record of all of the people who attended and the digital interactions that took place at a BuzzCast event. The BSV enterprise blockchain is known for its safety and security, low transaction costs and ability to scale, which make it a natural choice for what we want to build as the next generation of our platform.”
BuzzCast will also allow event hosts and sponsors to gamify the attendee experience in both virtual and hybrid events, enabling them to drive behavior, reward visitors with prizes and incentives, and extend their interaction with guests before, during and after the event, all built on BSV. The low transaction price and large block size will enable us to turn content, rewards and contact information into micro-NFTs that visitors can collect and trade at will.
Ayre Ventures founder Calvin Ayre said, “BuzzCast has uncovered an exciting market opportunity that has the potential to transform how virtual and hybrid events are produced, setting a new quality standard for sponsors and attendees. BuzzCast embodies the possibilities that BSV’s infinite scaling capacity offers to forward-looking enterprises.”
Said Jason Calacanis, of The Syndicate, “We’re excited with BuzzCast’s early progress and excited to see where this funding takes them.”
To learn more about BuzzCast, attend (in person or virtually) the CoinGeek New York conference, the year’s biggest BSV blockchain event (October 5-7, 2021), at the Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel. BuzzCast CEO Ryan Byrne will participate in the A Better Internet Experience using Blockchain panel on Thursday, October 7.
About BuzzCast
BuzzCast is the premium virtual events platform, powering the world’s most buzzworthy events. Trusted by global brands including Anthem, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, The World Trade and Tourism Council and Uber, BuzzCast delivers a broadcast-quality experience with zero downtime – 100% of the time. BuzzCast features advanced networking capabilities and supports complex ticketing access, tracks and formats, making it an ideal platform for global summits, investor conferences and high-profile industry events.
BuzzCast recently won a Gold Stevie Award® for Start-up of the Year 2021 in the 18th Annual International Business Awards®. The award recognizes best-in-class virtual events that were held in 2020 when the event industry was forced to rapidly innovate in response to the global pandemic. For more information, visit BuzzCast.com or read BuzzCast’s five-star customer reviews on G2.
About BSV
The BSV network is an enterprise-grade public blockchain that benefits from its ability to scale unbounded, offering greater data capacity and functionality, in addition to super-low transaction fees (the median transaction fee on the BSV network in 2020 was less than 1/100 of a U.S. cent), enabling it to serve as a powerful global data ledger for business, as well as a fast and efficient peer-to-peer electronic cash system.
About Ayre Ventures
Ayre Ventures, founded by celebrated entrepreneur and philanthropist Calvin Ayre, provides capital to scalable, high-growth businesses within the BSV blockchain ecosystem, the only infinitely scaling enterprise public blockchain. The Group targets investment in innovative ideas and ambitious projects that are ‘positively disruptive’, supporting their expansion with the Group’s extensive network and industry partners.