Paradigm leads $150 million raise for web3 social media platform Farcaster

The team behind the web3 social media platform Farcaster raised $150 million in funding led by Paradigm. A16z crypto, Haun Ventures, USV, Variant, Standard Crypto and others participated in the round. 

Farcaster co-founder Dan Romero wrote in a Tuesday's release that the raise will "support our work on Farcaster for many years to come." For the rest of 2024, the firm is doubling down on growing daily active users and adding developer primitives to the protocol, such as channels and direct messaging. In addition, Farcaster is hiring staff-level engineers. 

"Since going permissionless last October, Farcaster has seen 350,000 paid sign-ups and a 50x increase in network activity,” Romero added in the statement. "There are hundreds of developers building on the protocol and a growing number of apps and frames for people to use.”

Farcaster is an Optimism-based decentralized social media platform that not only gives users more control over their data but allows developers to augment the platform through mini-applications called "frames."

In March of this year, Farcaster had been in talks with venture firms about a new funding round that would net the firm a valuation of over $1 billion, The Block previously reported. In July 2022, its team raised $30 million in funding led by a16z crypto, with additional participation from Standard Crypto, Elad Gil, 1confirmation, Scalar Capital, First Round Capital, Volt Capital, A Capital and others. 

Farcaster Arbitrum support

Also on Tuesday, Farcaster added support for the Layer 2 blockchain Arbitrum. The move brings the platform's total supported network to three, along with Solana and Ethereum. 

"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," the Arbitrum Foundation wrote on the social media platform X. 

The web3 social platform saw increased daily user activity starting late March through April, more than doubling its number of "reacts," or akin to likes on web2 social media, from 1.83 million on Mar. 31 to 4.43 million on Apr. 17, The Block's Data Dashboard shows.