Farcaster Raises $150M for Decentralized Network Expansion

Farcaster has raised $150 million to expand decentralized social network with the just completed funding round lifting the startup’s valuation to $1 billion.

The decentralized social media platform built on Ethereum blockchain and Optimism’s layer-2 ecosystem raised the millions of dollars in a funding round led by Paradigm.

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Notable Investors Participate in Funding Round

Some notable investors like a16z, Variant, Haun, USV, and Standard Crypto participated in the funding round.

The fundraising comes at a time when crypto fundraising has been on an increase. Crypto advisory firm Architect Partners noted 444 disclosed private financing fundraisers during the 1st quarter till March 31, with a total of $3.1 billion raised.

In a post on the X platform on Tuesday, Farcaster founder, Dan Romero revealed that the funds will sustain the project’s development for many years to come as it grows its user base and adds developer tools.

Since going “permissionless” last October, Farcaster has seen substantial growth with more than 350,000 paid sign-ups and a 50-fold increase in network activity, according to Romero.

“There are hundreds of developers building on the protocol and a growing number of apps and frames for people to use.”

Excited to share the news about our recent fundraise! pic.twitter.com/KJxuPJrtqg

— Dan Romero (@dwr) May 21, 2024

Farcaster’s 2024 Plans

As for the rest of 2024, the firm is hiring staff-level engineers, growing active users, and adding developer primitives to protocols like channels and direct messaging.

The Optimism-based decentralized social media platform gives users more control over their data. It also allows developers to supplement the platform through mini-applications called “frames.”

“We didn’t know what shape it would take, but we knew it had to be sufficiently decentralized,” commented Romero of Farcaster in a blog post.

“We believed that if users and developers felt they were in control, they would be willing to invest their time and energy in building out the network.”

In March, the startup had reportedly been negotiating with venture capitalists about a new funding to buoy its valuation to over a billion dollars.

Earlier Fundraiser Raised $30 million

Earlier in July 2022, Farcaster’s team raised $30 million in funding, which was led by a16z crypto. Other participants were A Capital, Standard Crypto, Elad Gil, 1confirmation, Volt Capital, Scalar Capital, and First Round Capital.

On Tuesday, Farcaster also added support for Layer 1 blockchain Arbitrum, bringing the platforms supported by the network to three, in addition to Solana and Ethereum.

In a post on X social media platform Arbitrum Foundation wrote: “Starting now, you can build Frames with direct Arbitrum transaction support giving Frame builders and users direct access to one of the biggest blockchain communities.”

From late March through April, daily user activity had increased. The platform experienced an increase of more than double its number of “reacts,” akin to likes on web2 social media to 4.43 million as of April 17, from 1.83 million on March 31.

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Cryptopolitan Reporting By Enacy Mapakame