Narval raises $4 million for platform that helps firms organize web3 assets

French startup Narval today announced a $4 million seed round led by BlockTower VC.

The company is building what it describes as a “usage platform for web3 wallets,” helping organizations to manage and make use of everything from crypto to NFTs.

“Our key feature is what we call our very granular policy engine that sits on any key storage or custody model and that enables organizations to decide at a very granular level who can do what with digital assets,” Narval’s co-founder and CEO Greg Jessner, a former equity derivatives trading director at BNP Paribas, told The Block.

He said that Narval’s tech could be thought of as, “A simple, functional granular governance layer.”

Existing backers Fabric Ventures and Frst Capital also participated in the raise, after Narval graduated from their shared incubation program, Le Crypto Fellowship. So too did new investors a16z (through its Crypto Startup School), Cherry Crypto, Motier Ventures, Bpifrance and angel investors Sandeep Nailwal of Polygon, The Sandbox’s Seb Borget and Arianee’s Fred Montagnon.

Narval’s team remains small at less than ten people. With the fresh funds, the startup will be hiring engineers and a designer while continuing work on the platform and boosting marketing efforts, Jessner said.

A governance layer for web3

In its announcement, Narval pitched its tech — which gives firms a way to control precisely who can access what digital assets — as a solution for some of the challenges faced by the crypto sector at present. As things stand, it said, “organizations can’t securely use their digital assets.”

The startup highlighted issues such as personal wallet use for organizational purposes and a confusing array of wallet types as prevalent in the industry.

Narval’s governance layer, which comes in the form of an API, aims to give treasury managers a more secure way of navigating DeFi and NFTs.