“Can a phygital (physical + digital NFT) marketplace make collecting more entertaining and liquid by vaulting assets and enabling instant buy-back guarantees?”
Founded in 2022 as a Web3 marketplace for physical trading cards, Courtyard pioneered the concept of 'vaulted and insured' physical collectibles represented as NFTs. The company initially operated on Ethereum but migrated to Polygon in August 2023 to cut costs and enable fiat (credit card) payments alongside crypto, broadening its collector base beyond Web3 natives. The embedded finance angle is primarily crypto-native: users hold USDC balances in platform wallets, purchase collectibles via credit card or on-chain USDC, and rely on Veriff KYC before physical redemption. The platform is expanding from trading cards into broader collectibles, fashion, and entertainment-driven commerce.
Courtyard was founded by Nicolas le Jeune and Paulin Andurand and is founded in 2022, headquartered in San Francisco, CA, USA.
Get a read on where your own stack stands against Courtyard and the rest of its category — what they built versus bought, which providers they use, and where the gaps in your own strategy and competitive set actually are.