Ethereum
Ethereum-based Twitter rival Farcaster raises $150 million
Farcasterthe decentralized social media protocol, announced a $150 million Series A funding round on Tuesday, providing a major boost to the fast-growing network’s development plans.
The funding round was led by Paradigm, with participation from investment firms including Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto fund a16z, Haun Ventures, Union Square Ventures, Variant, and Standard Crypto, among others. Farcaster said Crypto Unleashed that the raise values the startup at $1 billion, making it the latest crypto unicorn.
In a post tuesdayFarcaster co-founder Dan Romero outlined the company’s priorities regarding the newly raised capital: “We are focused on two things for the rest of the year: increasing the number of daily active users. [and] adding developer primitives to the protocol like channels and direct messaging.
This announcement follows the permissionless launch of Farcaster in October 2023, which opened the protocol to all developers and users. Since then, Farcaster has seen considerable growth, boasting 350,000 paid registrations and a 50x network activity. The network is built on OptimismA Ethereum Layer 2 scaling network.
Farcaster was founded in 2020 by two Coinbase alumni, Romero and Varun Srinivasan. It gained considerable momentum at the start of 2024 with the launching Framesa feature that extracts functionality, like minting NFTs or playing games, from external apps without requiring the user to leave the social feed.
Editor’s note: This article was written with the help of AI. Edited and verified by Andrew Hayward.