Web3 startup Here Not There has announced a $25 million series A funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz (A16z). The round also saw participation by Benchmark and Framework Ventures.
The Web3 startup has ambitions to develop Towns, a decentralised group chat protocol and app enabling its users to build online communities on the blockchain. These communities can then use Towns to create programmable self-governed town squares, which offer “home towns on the internet for online communities.”
Despite the difficulties of a bleak crypto winter for venture capital investments, Web3 projects and companies are persevering. We see investments from the likes of Animoca Brands, and Hong Kong recently allocated $6.4 million to develop the Web3 ecosystem further.
Web3 goals
Here Not There is looking to allow users to come together and chat without worrying about prevented access or a change in user rights from app owners. Each community will feature control settings such as administration, privacy and roles to create a tailored experience that even includes rewarding members or allowing them to sell non-fungible tokens in the chat. Any community will have access to build new clients or application programming interfaces on the protocol for control and customisation.
Sriram Krishnan, A16z’s general partner, shared with CoinDesk that “The team’s vision for creating a digital town square where members can define the borders, set the rules, and build the world they want is an ambitious goal that is uniquely achievable through the promise of decentralisation and web3.”
Here Not There is led by Ben Rubin, co-founder of the group video chat app Houseparty and Brain Meek, a former chief technology officer of virtual reality training company STRIVR Labs. The team is currently inviting people to join Towns as early alpha users to help test the app and help create and shape the platform’s future.
Paige Cook is a writer with a multi-media background. She has experience covering video games and technology and also has freelance experience in video editing, graphic design, and photography. Paige is a massive fan of the movie industry and loves a good TV show, if she is not watching something interesting then she's probably playing video games or buried in a good book. Her latest addiction is virtual photography and currently spends far too much time taking pretty pictures in games rather than actually finishing them.
