29-Year-Old Entrepreneur Launches A Business To Support Black Nft Artists

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have taken the business world by storm. NFTs are fungible digital assets usually purchased and sold with a cryptocurrency representing real-world objects like music and art. NFT has so much buzz and money connected to it. Though albeit complicated, NFTs, when sold, generate a lot of money, and some artists have chosen to use their earnings to help other artists.

Umba Daima

Such is the case with 29-year-old Iris Nevins, an entrepreneur and art collector. Determined in supporting and empowering artists, Nevis is CEO, co-founder, and NFT producer at Umba Daima. Founded last February, the studio advocates and informs people about web3. Her business made up to $ 140 000 in just ten months, and the proceeds went to helping black NFTs artists.

The original plan was to create an online platform to sell their art. But later on, when she heard about NFTs, she decided that technology is more suitable to help artists. She thought that with NFT, they would impact and generate more revenue for all of them to sell paintings and prints.

Umba Daima launched several brands such as NFT Art, the unseen gallery, and the NFT roundtable it oversees. 'We notice that the most successful artist had a more robust community that surrounded them and were reposting or promoting their art on their social media platforms.

An example of Umba Daima's success is artist Andrea Oshea. When Andrea Oshea started, his sales were lower, but since he started using Umba Daima, he's one of the highest-paid black artists in the space.

Bridging the Gap

Although it was successful, the team didn't have enough cash. Nevis says that although she quit her job to fully concentrate on Umba Daima, she hasn’t earned enough profit yet. Most of her team members are primarily volunteers. Currently, Nevins is excited to see the growth of black-owned NFTs.

"We are a good way from being profitable but I'm hoping it can happen soon." Nevis stated. She's also grateful for the likes of Tanya Evans, a professor at Pennsylvania State Dickinson law, and Kyle hill, head at crypto at consultancy platform Troika IQ, who have helped Umba Daima throughout its journey.”

Nevins is so passionate about social justice and equity that she sees block chain as a way of bridging the gap between the wealthy and the marginalized. She also states that crypto and NFTs are a technology that creates a new economic system in which the power is rebalanced. She sees the slight possibility for the traditional approach to be reverted, so it is wise to build something new that helps and uplifts the underrepresented.

However, the NFTs space is still not perfect. Nevins noticed a lack of diversity because black artists were not generating many sales. She hopes that the NFTs marketplaces work more closely with community builders.

Looking to the future, Nevins is excited to see the growth of black-owned NFTs this year. One of Umba Daima's one-on-one NFT drop is scheduled for February and will include works from famous artists like Dominique Weiss and Shaylin Wallace.

Her goal is to help all of the artists "get their flowers" and grow through that process, as she puts it. We are excited to see how this genius platform will impact the community and the benefits it grants black artists.