Farcaster’s valuation has reached $1 billion following a funding round led by Paradigm, with support from a16z crypto, Haun, USV, Variant, and Standard Crypto.
Farcaster, a decentralized social network, confidently announced on Tuesday that it has secured $150 million in a Series A funding round, catapulting its valuation to $1 billion. The round was spearheaded by crypto investment powerhouse Paradigm, with significant contributions from a16z crypto, Haun Ventures, Union Square Ventures, Variant Fund, Standard Crypto, and others.
“We’re doubling down on our vision for Farcaster over the next few years to scale this to an internet-wide protocol,” declared Dan Romero, Farcaster’s co-founder, in an interview with Unchained.
With a lean team of just 13, co-founder Varun Srinivasan emphasized their efficiency-focused approach: “Our philosophy from the beginning has been to build a very lean, very efficient team.”
Since its transition to a permissionless platform in October 2023, Farcaster has amassed 350,000 paid sign-ups. Activity surged in February following the introduction of Frames, a feature that transforms posts into interactive applications. Further spikes in daily active users were seen in April and May, driven by FarCon, the first conference for the growing community, held in early May.
Data from a Dune Analytics dashboard by Pixelhack shows that as of May 20, Farcaster had nearly 45,000 daily active users on a seven-day trailing average, marking a 30% increase since the February peak.
“We’ve seen hundreds of developers building on Farcaster, which is a significant milestone,” noted Srinivasan. “This growth in both user and developer engagement was a key driver for this funding round.”
This announcement comes seven months after Farcaster launched its mainnet on the layer 2 blockchain network Optimism and two years after its seed round in May 2022. Remarkably, the company still retains 80% of the funds from its initial seed raise.
“Varun and I are committed to a long-term mindset,” Romero stated. “We’re thrilled by the growth on both the user and developer sides and this funding allows us to plan with a decade-long perspective.”
With robust capitalization, Farcaster is poised to continue enhancing developer tools like channels and direct messaging while focusing on increasing and retaining daily active users, Romero added.