In every corner of the creator economy, one-of-a-kind physical goods, signed comic pages, rare illustrations, and personal commissions are changing hands in messy, offline workflows.

At the heart of these transactions is a deep fan connection, but the infrastructure has not kept pace. Raremarq fixes that.

We’re thrilled to back Raremarq, a vertically integrated auction platform built specifically for professional creators selling rare, high-value artifacts directly to their audiences.

Think of it as cultural commerce, rebuilt from the creator outward.

The Problem with “Generic” Platforms

eBay, Etsy, and Shopify all serve creators in some capacity.

However, when it comes to rare, story-rich items—where trust, timing, and emotional connection are crucial, those tools fall short. Auctions are clunky. Escrow is non-existent. And there are no livestream drops.

That’s the gap Raremarq fills. The platform makes it seamless for creators to sell unique goods without the overhead of running a storefront.

Raremarq began as a marketplace focused on comic creators called Nerd Crawler.

After growing and helping comic creators earn as much as 5x more, Chris, the founder, realized that the platform he built that made it seamless for comic creators to sell unique goods could be leveraged by all creators who struggle to monetize their work.

Evolving to Raremarq allowed the team to expand and to tackle the broader vision: build the platform for creators to capture the true value for their rare products and for fans to access the best from creators they love.

Auctions are soft-close by default and are extended by 30 seconds when a bid is placed. Escrow is built in. And livestream selling is just getting started.

It's already working. After just one year of being founded, the platform has surpassed $1 million in gross merchandise value, with over 180 verified sellers and 16,000 monthly active users, achieved entirely through creator-led growth and almost zero paid acquisition.

Built for Today, Ready for Tomorrow

The creator economy has already seen a wave of NFT marketplaces, such as OpenSea and Rarible, promising digital provenance and resale royalties. However, most of those platforms led with speculation and abstraction, asking creators and fans to leap into a fully digital world that didn’t align with their existing behaviors.

Raremarq takes the opposite approach.

It starts with the real world: physical artifacts, human stories, and existing fan behaviors. Auctions here are rooted in tangible value—comic pages with history, sketches with meaning, and signatures from favorite artists.

These are not speculative tokens. They are cultural artifacts.

But here’s the kicker: the platform is already built with digital provenance in mind. When and if the market is ready, Raremarq can extend seamlessly into blockchain-backed ownership. NFTs become a feature, not the main product.

A Founder Built for This

Chris Tung launched Raremarq solo, writing every line of code and onboarding every seller himself.

He’s a repeat founder and led marketing and product teams at Google and Realtor.com, but more importantly, he’s part of the comic art world.

His first internship was at the X-Men office at Marvel Comics, where he led retention and acquisition marketing.

He also led retention and acquisition marketing at ComiXology, the #1 app for reading comics and manga on mobile devices, which was acquired by Amazon.

Because of this passion for comics, he built the platform for creators like Frank Cho and Artgerm, who now use Raremarq to reach fans directly, triple their average sale prices, and remove the need to manage their own online stores.

We believe this kind of founder-market fit is rare, and when it’s paired with execution like this, it’s worth betting on.

Why We Invested

Raremarq is everything we love in an early-stage company: focused wedge, fast execution, and credible expansion paths.

The company is starting with rare comic art, a $500 million category, and expanding thoughtfully into adjacent verticals, such as signed books, cosplay, fan commissions, and other rare products and experiences.

More than just a marketplace, Raremarq is evolving into infrastructure, offering livestream selling, white-labeled tools, and mobile-first apps.

It’s also deeply aligned with a long-term trend we’ve been watching: the shift toward verified, creator-owned goods—physical first, digital second.

Raremarq isn’t betting on a speculative future. It’s building the rails for a cultural one.

Together with Jason Calacanis’ LAUNCH fund and Eurie Kim from Forerunner Ventures as an angel investor, we are excited to support Chris as he scales the platform from an MVP into a category-defining company and builds the foundation for a new kind of ownership.

For more information, visit Raremarq.