Social Infrastructure OpenSocial Protocol Secures $6 Million Strategic Investment from Framework Ventures and North Island Ventures to Enhance Community Apps

Hong Kong, July 25th, 2024 – Chainwire

The ‘Web3 Shopify of Social’ has rapidly gained traction, reaching 30,000 on-chain users within just two weeks of launching its first app.

OpenSocial Protocol, a foundational layer for developing social applications, has announced a $6 million strategic funding round led by Framework Ventures and North Island Ventures, with contributions from several other investors including Hivemind Capital Partners, Stratos, Moonrock Capital, and various prominent angel investors.

Developed by Everest Ventures Group, a prominent Web3 operations group focused on consumer applications in Asia, OpenSocial Protocol provides open-source, multichain infrastructure tools that empower users and communities to create social decentralized applications (dApps) without any coding experience. This initiative aims to reduce barriers for users interested in developing their own community apps.

With this recent funding, alongside previously raised seed funding and ecosystem funds totaling $26 million, OpenSocial Protocol is well-equipped to advance its development efforts. Earlier backers include Portal Ventures, Animoca Brands, and OKX Ventures, among other notable figures in the Web3 landscape.

Vance Spencer, Co-Founder of Framework Ventures, expressed confidence in OpenSocial’s potential, stating, "The OpenSocial team is well-positioned to become a major player in the growing SocialFi movement across Asia. Their immense talent and experience in scaling apps make us excited to support their expansion."

Travis Scher, Co-Founder and Managing Director of North Island Ventures, added, "OpenSocial is constructing a sustainable social platform that has the potential to bring millions of new users into the crypto space."

Allen Ng, Co-Founder of OpenSocial Protocol, noted that this strategic support will enhance OpenSocial’s ability to deploy its infrastructure across major chains and ecosystems, facilitating a user-friendly platform for creators and community members. The goal is to empower and launch 1,000 community apps by 2025.

OpenSocial aims to onboard numerous apps by providing the necessary infrastructure and customizable user interface, promoting true ownership of intellectual property and enhancing monetization strategies for communities and users. It seeks to create the world’s largest multichain community economy, addressing challenges like user retention, prevention of spam bots, and expanding user engagement beyond the crypto-centric audience.

The first app to launch on OpenSocial Protocol, SoMon (short for Social Monster), a community forum inspired by Reddit, has achieved impressive metrics with over 30,000 on-chain active users and an average engagement time of nearly 20 minutes, totaling over 300,000 on-chain transactions—excluding spam bots—in just two weeks.

Zeek, another app set to launch on the platform, is a social collaboration network focused on creating value through community-building mechanisms and reputation systems. In June, Zeek secured $3 million in funding.

OpenSocial Protocol’s modular approach enables creators and communities to deploy apps rapidly and at low cost, featuring tools for chat, content sharing, voting, and more, either on-chain or off-chain. By integrating social functionalities into different verticals, OpenSocial aims to foster greater connectivity across ecosystems.

Everest Ventures Group has dedicated 80 developers to streamline the onboarding of community apps, demonstrating their commitment to redefining data sovereignty and implementing sustainable economic incentives.

OpenSocial Protocol seeks to enable a future where anyone can build meaningful social connections and possess true ownership of their social data. The initiative is poised to revolutionize community-building within the Web3 landscape.