Upshot

Founded in 2019 by Nicholas Emmons and Kenny Peluso, Upshot is a Boston-based firm that has developed financial infrastructure for Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) and other illiquid assets. CEO Nick Emmons brings years of experience as a full-stack developer and blockchain engineer, having previously worked at John Hancock where he focused on decentralized insurance on public Ethereum. This experience with the subjective nature of insurance claims inspired the core concept of Upshot: incentivizing honest, subjective feedback to create reliable valuations.

Upshot addresses the challenge of accurately pricing illiquid assets like NFTs by providing real-time appraisals powered by machine learning and artificial intelligence. The platform analyzes over 100 million NFTs from more than 100,000 collections, aiming for a high degree of accuracy. This core appraisal technology serves as the foundation for a suite of products and services designed for the decentralized finance (DeFi) and NFT markets. The company provides developers with tools and price feeds through an API to build their own solutions. Upshot has also introduced NFT indexes, which function like traditional market indexes, to allow for the tracking of a basket of NFT assets, offering a broader view of market performance.

In February 2023, the company expanded its operations into the NFT lending space. It utilizes its appraisal models to create managed lending strategies, aiming to reduce risk for lenders while offering competitive terms for borrowers. These strategies consider fair value estimates, recovery rates, liquidity, and trading volume. The company has secured significant financial backing, raising a total of $30.8 million over two rounds. A Series A round in May 2021 brought in $7.5 million, followed by a $22 million Series A2 round in March 2022, led by Polychain Capital with participation from firms like Framework Ventures and Slow Ventures. In February 2024, Upshot rebranded to Allora and shifted its focus to becoming a decentralized AI network built as a Layer 1 blockchain on the Cosmos stack, moving beyond its initial concentration on NFT appraisals.

Keywords: NFT appraisal, decentralized finance, DeFi, blockchain engineer, Nick Emmons, Kenny Peluso, NFT analytics, machine learning, AI crypto, real-time appraisals, digital asset valuation, NFT lending, Polychain Capital, Framework Ventures, NFT price feeds, NFT indexes, illiquid assets, blockchain data, crypto asset valuation, Allora, decentralized AI, Layer 1 blockchain, Cosmos SDK, Web3 finance