San Francisco, CA, June 8th, 2023 – Lens Protocol, a pioneer in decentralized social media, announced today that it has successfully raised $15 million in a funding round led by IDEO CoLab Ventures. The investment will fuel Lens Protocol’s mission of revolutionizing the digital landscape by delivering a decentralized social media experience.
Joining IDEO CoLab Ventures in the funding round were prominent venture capital firms including General Catalyst, Variant, and Blockchain Capital. Notably, several decentralized autonomous organizations such as Punk Dao, DaoJones and Flamingo DAO also participated. A group of esteemed angel investors, including industry leaders and visionaries, further bolstered the round. These notable names include Hayden Adams, CEO of Uniswap; Balaji Srinivasan, former CTO of Coinbase; Alex Atallah, co-founder of OpenSea; Sébastien Borget, co-founder of Sandbox; Emily Yang (pplpleasr), an acclaimed NFT artist; Sandeep Nailwal, co-founder of Polygon and Denis Nazarov, founder of Mirror.xyz.
The specifics of the funding method, whether through equity or tokens, remain undisclosed at this time.
Founder of Lens Protocol, Stani Kulechov, expressed his vision for the project, stating,
“Our vision at Lens is to accelerate the adoption of the next generation of the internet powered by human connection—the people-powered social layer. We believe user empowerment will lead us back to the open web, with the addition of ubiquitous social experiences, diverse content, novel monetization models, and profitable new businesses that share revenue equitably with users and creators.”
Lens Protocol aims to introduce a decentralized social graph on the Polygon Proof-of-Stake blockchain, allowing creators to take ownership of the connections between themselves and their community. By offering a fully composable, user-owned social graph, the protocol enables the seamless transfer of data and content across various applications. Unlike existing Web2 networks, where user data is locked to a specific platform, Lens Protocol empowers users to control and migrate their data to any application built on the protocol.
In addition to providing a decentralized social graph, Lens Protocol is actively developing a blockchain scaling solution called Momoka. This solution will store social media transaction data off-chain while ensuring its verification on-chain, enhancing the efficiency and scalability of the platform.
Notable social media sites already built on Lens Protocol include Lenster, Orb, and Lenstube, with more expected to join in the near future.
As of the current reporting period, Lens Protocol boasts over 59,000 monthly active users, with a significant number of over 25,000 active users on a weekly basis.
With the successful completion of this funding round, Lens Protocol is poised to advance its mission of transforming the social media landscape and empowering users and creators alike. The injection of capital will enable the development of innovative features, enhance user experiences, and expand the protocol’s reach in the burgeoning world of decentralized social media.