2022 in Review: the Arianee Highlight Reel

‘Tis the season to deck the halls, sing carols, drink some hot cocoa, and look back on all that 2022 had in store for us!

The world of web3 continued its fast pace development with mainstream adoption at the forefront. Despite some bumps in the road, the overall theme of this year's ongoing bear market was: BUILD.

We at Arianee took that in stride and made 2022 an eventful year full of growth! Join us as we look back on just how far we’ve come. 🚀

BRAND PARTNERSHIPS

Our ability to scale allowed us to accomplish amazing things over the last year. This is seen foremost in the array of projects we worked on with clients.

While our journey in the web3 space is rooted in the luxury and fashion industry, this year, we were able to branch out to new sectors, including sports, wine and spirits, beauty, retail, and publishing. We were proud to count prominent brands like Moncler, Château Pape Clément, Madame Figaro, Lacoste, Galeries Lafayette, IWC Schaffhausen, Stade Toulousain, Panerai, Printemps, YSL Beauty, POAP, The Sandbox, Wunderman Thompson among our clients and partners.

Our team worked on 58 projects across 34 clients. Some noteworthy moments to add to our client highlight reel include:

• Selling Out! Most of our drops (IWC, YSL Beauty, Stade Toulousain, and Madame Figaro) were sold out within 24-72 hrs of launch, an impressive feat as many companies are still trying to understand how to deploy their own NFT selections.
• Moncler was a unique case in which we integrated a custodial wallet hidden inside the existing Moncler app. Those who had already downloaded the Moncler app didn’t have to install anything else - just sit back and enjoy! In doing so, we were able to streamline the web3 experience for both the brand and its customers.
• In total, we created 2.8 million blockchain transactions on the Arianee Protocol.

For more information about our partnerships, head to our website news section.

GROWING FROM THE INSIDE OUT

None of this would have been possible without our stellar team.

Beginning the year with 18 members, we are now 55-strong, pushing our reach and capabilities to the next level.

Amid our exciting growth, we had a significant challenge: to quickly scale operations without losing sight of two fundamental principles - agility, and ownership.

An opportunity to restructure and increase efficiency was before us.

Here's how we took it in stride:

We began dividing our tech and product teams into "squads" that collaborated on a particular strategic goal (e.g., End User, Tokenization, and Web3 Toolings). Instead of the everyone-works-on-everything model, this organizational style allows us to cultivate highly autonomous and knowledgeable teams in a well-defined area.

As we’ve restructured our team, we've added new positions: Account Management, Delivery, Partnerships, Data, and Training. Additionally, we now have a great HR & People team to care for our team's well-being.

During all this change and expansion, we are still committed to a remote-first workplace, an approach that enables us to work with best-in-class talents regardless of where they live. We also stress the importance of creating intentional, IRL bonding activities such as monthly apéro and team offsites.

PRODUCT UPDATES

The past year has yielded numerous developments we’re thrilled to report.

We introduced a white-label web3 site that offers a range of features for distributing NFTs. This solution includes e-commerce, auction, stock management, crypto and fiat payment options, a custodial wallet, and the ability to integrate subdomains for different countries.

We developed a Token-gating API that allows us to set rules for accessing content and services based on the user's wallet contents. Our product is fully integrated with Wallet Connect or Arianee products such as the SPKZ, and Web3 Website. The Token-gating API can also be used on external environments, which was the case of Lacoste’s virtual room.

Additionally, we worked with top-of-the-line players across the e-commerce, metaverse, and payment spheres to provide our clients with the most well-rounded solutions (i.e. (Stripe, Saleor, Coinhouse, Coinbase Connect, The Sandbox, Lens Protocol, POAP …).

This year we also launched The Forge: a companion app for brands to pair their physical products to NFTs. This is just the beginning. We have big plans for NFT management from desktops and mobile wallets on the horizon.

We are GDPR compliant and can offer a full web3 project without the need for traditional personal data management. In order to achieve our ambitious goals, we have strengthened our tech stack by improving the quality of our APIs, blockchain transaction management, and Polygon capabilities. We have also built a world-class resilient infrastructure using IAC - Infrastructure As Code.

ARIANEE ON THE SCENE

After the pandemic limited in-person meet-ups, 2022 brought us back together!

We participated in over 100 web3-based events around the world. Whether as attendees or organizers, we were up close and personal, shaping the web3 conversation and providing meaningful use cases.

But that's not all. Together with our friends at leading brands, we invited global executives and prominent figures from the art, fashion, and technology communities to discuss the most critical trends in the web3 space. Some of the events we organized and co-organized included: NFT Paris, NFC Lisbon, BoF Voices Salon, Paris Web3 Night, Fashion Week x web3 Talk & Cocktail, Vogue Business at Shangri-La Paris, and Vogue Business in Miami during Art Basel.

To stay up to date on our events sign up to join our Arianee newsletter.

HARD WORK DOESN’T GO UNNOTICED

We are delighted that our hard work is seen through flourishing partnerships, satisfied users, and successful products.

However, seeing these efforts highlighted and supported in the media is also rewarding. Arianee has been featured more than 300 times this past year, in some of the most prominent publications covering the space, such as BOF, Vogue Business, BFM Business, Cryptoast, Les Echos, Le Figaro, and others!

A big thank you to all the podcasts who invited us to join them on their channels for feature spots, interviews and discussions. There is nothing better than connecting in real-time with those who share our passion for the burgeoning web3 sphere.

Tune in now:

1. Cryptoast: Comment le Web3 bouleversera-t-il notre quotidien? Avec Arianee
2. NFT Morning: Ep. #383 | Interview de Pierre-Nicolas Hurstel et Frédéric Montagnon, cofondateurs d'Arianee
3. Le Journal du Net: Tech Attitude - 30 - Frédéric Montagnon, Arianee
4. Precious Talk: Arianee: creating scarcity and digital property with CEO Pierre Nicolas Hurstel

A SUCCESSFUL SERIES A

One of the most important milestones of the year was our series A funding round, in which we were able to raise €20 million! The round was led by investment firm Tiger Global and included additional backing from some of our existing investors.

This was a unique funding round for us, as investors invested in the company's equity and our $ARIA20 token, the key to our protocol.

OUR ROLE IN THE ECOSYSTEM

All of our accomplishments, both internally with our team and vision and externally with partners and products, have placed Arianee as a leader in the web3 for brands space.

Our chairman Frederic Montagnon was elected as the chairman of the Adan NFT Committee. Along with our CEO Pierre-Nicolas Hurstel, who co-founded the NFT Factory and is now a board member of NFT Paris. Our leaders were recognized among 100 Innovators by Vogue Business and 100 French tech personalities 2022 by Frenchweb.

From A-Z, we work in a robust environment alongside some of the industry’s most prominent players. Of course, none of this is possible without our community, so we also raise a glass to you.

Here’s to another year of innovation and exploration! 🥂