Async Art is transforming the art world with programmable art that lets creators and collectors immerse themselves in dynamic works
Async Art, the Silicon Valley–based digital art platform, announced yesterday that it raised more than $2 million in seed funding. The round was led by investment firm Lemniscap with participation from Signum Growth Capital, Galaxy Interactive, Divergence Ventures, Blue Wire Capital, Collab + Currency, Semantic, Inflection, the LAO, and Placeholder, which led a prior seed round.
Launched in February 2020 and built on the Ethereum blockchain, Async Art champions a new movement of programmable art that separates works into a “Master” and independently controllable, ownable “Layers.” This structure enables artists to deconstruct a piece into modular components—Layers—that can be assigned behaviors or interactive controls collectors can adjust.
Collectors can, for example, link Layers to time-based rules or external data feeds so elements change autonomously. In this way, owners and viewers become active participants in the artwork’s evolution rather than passive observers.
Conlan Rios, Async Art’s CEO and founder, explains: “We believe the future of digital art is programmable. Art has the greatest impact when you see yourself in it, and programmable art allows collectors and creators to immerse themselves in works as never before.”
In a short time, Async Art has achieved notable milestones: the platform has recorded more than $5 million in bid volume and over $1 million in art sales, and it released a dedicated smart TV app for displaying works.
Additionally, Async Art’s first NFT collaboration, Robert Alice’s “Block 21,” sold at the prestigious auction house Christie’s last October. The piece—a digital portrait that riffs on Bitcoin’s code—made headlines when it fetched more than $130,000.
The company is currently hiring for a community manager and a platform developer as it expands the team. Plans include developing more display options for Async artworks and onboarding a broader base of users and collectors.
The Lemniscap team commented: “As financial use cases continue to prove their value in decentralized environments, media is the next sector poised for disruption. By enabling shared ownership of works and dynamic control over their appearance, Async Art overturns traditional notions of art and opens the door to an entirely new category of programmable media.”