- Blockchain Council
- September 17, 2024
OP3N, a Web3 AI platform, has raised $28 million at a valuation of $100 million. The funds raised in this series A funding will power the development of a new Web3 version of WhatsApp meets Amazon, specifically like WeChat meets Alibaba. The funding round was led by Animoca Brands. It was joined by leading investment firms and venture capitalists, including SuperScrypt, Dragonfly Capital, New Enterprise Associates’ Connect Ventures, Creative Artists Agency, Republic Crypto, Galaxy Digital and Warner Music Interactive, Avalanche’s Blizzard Fund, GSR Markets, BRV Capital Management, The Spartan Group, and Russel Westbrook, an NBA player.
The platform Superapp is the chat-based product of OP3N that implements decentralized technologies and Blockchain into Web 2.0-friendly interfaces to achieve the end goal of bridging the gap between Web2 and Web3 ecosystems. Jaeson Ma, the co-CEO of the company, told TechCrunch, “I wanted to make a connection for creators, chats, and commerce in one place.” He said the platform was initially built to cater to the need for a Web2 similar interface and user experience for Web3 technologies. He added that their application would allow audio, video, and mixed media content sharing by adding them to the on-chain data. Users can interact with a one-stop experience.
Learn to Create a Decentralized App (DApp)
Regarding the investment and partners, Ma said they are long-term players and will stay with the company to build a strategic synergy and bring further developments in the industry. Furthermore, he also commented on his company’s plans to build a decentralized alternative to all major platforms, including YouTube, Facebook, Spotify, and WhatsApp for Web3 communities. On being asked about the ongoing testing phase of their product, he said that in version one, fans were not quite aware of the differences between Solana, AVAX, Polygon, or any other Crypto, which caused a lot of friction, leading to a building on fallout. He also referred to this learning and experience as an essential element of the company’s realization that they must bridge the gap between Web2 and Web3 before developing and building Web3 products to gain traction among general users.
OP3N has been an active developer in AI and Web3 technologies, and it was backed by investors like Soma Capital, Goldwater Capital, 500 Global, and WhaleShark. Apart from these capitalists, individual investors like Sandbox Co-founder Sebastian Borget and Twitch co-founder Justin Kan.