By Sam Rosenblum

Today, I’m proud to announce that Haun Ventures has led the $5M Seed round for Agora, with participation from Seed Club, Coinbase Ventures, Sina Habibian, Balaji Srinivasan, Credibly Neutral, Packy McCormick, Tim Beiko, Dan Romero, Eva Beylin, Will Price, Liam Horne, Hasu, and more.

At Haun Ventures, we believe effective decentralized coordination will be a key differentiator of the winning protocol ecosystems. In a period of rapid protocol evolution, significant onchain treasuries, and large cohorts of new users, it’s time to unlock at-scale participation in protocol governance through focused software that improves and tracks critical workflows.

Unlike in prior eras of the web, we’re now working with and building upon globally open, composable, and economically empowered protocols. The super power of this model—the self-improving and self-perpetuating nature of the protocols—comes directly from the community ownership and governance that protocol-native tokens enable. Whereas traditional internet protocols like HTTP and SMTP tended to be developed and maintained by small groups of academics or hobbyists, token-backed protocols can catalyze ongoing participation from a broad set of ecosystem participants.

Decentralized protocol governance allows stakeholders of a given ecosystem (i.e., holders of the token) to participate in decision making around software upgrades, resource allocation, and more, resulting in economic alignment among ecosystem developers and users. For example, we’ve recently seen a decentralized group of token-holders empowered to vote in a grants committee and administer tens of millions of dollars in public goods funding.

And yet, despite its importance and inherent advantages, protocol governance tooling has largely remained an underserved market. Like the days of CRM before Salesforce, token governance solutions today often consist of a cobbled together set of various third-party open source and internal tools that don’t effectively serve the nuances of productively coordinating a decentralized community.

Enter Agora.

Agora is a full stack protocol governance solution—including frontend application, smart contract platform, and native treasury—already used today by leading protocols such as Optimism, Uniswap, ENS, and Lyra. 

Agora was founded in 2022 by Yitong Zhang, Charlie Feng, and Kent Fenwick, who initially started working on governance tooling together through their involvement in Nouns, one of the most active onchain governance communities. But the trio has a long shared history prior to that. 

Yitong is a crypto-native designer and community builder, having been a staff product designer at Coinbase and co-creator of VectorDAO. Yitong and Charlie previously cofounded Hemingly. Charlie then went on to cofound Clearco, where he was the business and finance mind behind what became a multibillion dollar fintech. Kent is a rare engineer with deep knowledge across growth and product, who tapped into the 2014 crypto scene before going on to work with Charlie as VP of Growth, then VP of Product at Clearco.

We’re proud to be partnering with them to tackle this opportunity. If you’re passionate about token-powered protocol governance and are interested in teaming up, check out their open roles! 

By Chris Ahn and Breck Stodghill

Developer interest in web3 has grown massively over the last few years. Web3 monthly active developers are at an all time high with more joining in 2021 than any year prior. This level of developer interest has grown through multiple cycles, bringing with it innovation across numerous ecosystems and use cases. New blockchains like Polygon, Solana, NEAR, and Aptos have emerged alongside new use cases like DeFi, NFTs, and gaming.

New networks and use cases inject vibrancy into the web3 ecosystem. However, they also introduce greater complexity for builders in the form of new virtual machines, programming languages, standards, and best practices to consider. In just a few years, new programming languages like Rust and Move have emerged alongside Solidity, and new techniques like gasless minting have become best practice. We anticipate that as innovation and developer interest in web3 continues to grow, so will this complexity.

As a result, developer tools that simplify this complexity will be immensely important in bringing the next million developers into the ecosystem. Thirdweb offers a full stack of useful developer tools including pre-built and audited smart contracts, SDKs, and dashboards to help developers create, deploy, and manage their web3 apps. Thirdweb already supports six different blockchains (with more coming soon) across multiple programming languages. In addition, thirdweb offers a comprehensive UI component library and auth solution to make it simple for front end developers to build beautiful user experiences on their smart contracts. Once contracts are deployed, thirdweb’s dashboards and analytics tools ensure that every developer can monitor their smart contract’s onchain activity. By offering an end-to-end solution from creation to post-deploy management, thirdweb saves developers time and costly errors.

Great developer tooling is nuanced and requires an experienced and thoughtful team to get right. Furqan and Steven are an exceptional duo with the right track record to tackle this problem. Furqan has prior, proven experience building a developer platform as the former co-founder and CTO of AppLovin. His approach and passion to building product is evident; in deciding which initial features to build into thirdweb, he spoke with 500 potential customers to fully internalize their needs. Steven is an expert in community building as the former founder and CEO of Social Chain. The thirdweb community truly shines as an authentic and passionate place for builders to share ideas and help each other. In fact, the result of this community-first ethos is the reason why the platform is open source, 100% on-chain, and every smart contract deployed using thirdweb is 100% owned by the creator’s wallet.

Today, we’re proud to announce that Haun Ventures is leading the Series A in thirdweb with participation from other investors including Coinbase Ventures, Shopify, Protocol Labs, Polygon, and other strategic angels. We’re long term supporters of the web3 developer ecosystem and are excited for thirdweb to make web3 development more accessible. Welcome thirdweb!

This post is for informational purposes only, and does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell securities or to pursue any particular investment strategy. This post should not be relied upon in evaluating the merits of any investment or any particular investment strategy. You should consult your own advisers as to business, financial, tax, legal, and all other related matters concerning any investment. The views expressed in this post reflect the current opinions of the authors and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Haun Ventures Management LP or its affiliates. Certain information in this post may have been obtained from third-party sources, including portfolio companies of Haun Ventures. While taken from sources that the authors believe to be reliable, Haun Ventures has not independently verified the accuracy of such information. Content is as of the date posted and subject to change without notice. Haun Ventures makes no representations about the enduring accuracy of information or its appropriateness for any given situation. Please see https://www.haun.co/disclosures for additional important information.

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By Sam Rosenblum

Crypto technologies are driving a transformation of the global financial system that has only just begun. DeFi Summer was less than two years ago. Since then, a flurry of builders and participants from around the world have entered the space to innovate with the goal of building a peer-to-peer financial system that is characterized by more inclusivity and transparency.

DeFi (decentralized finance) has the potential to remove key structural obstacles to building wealth that have been root causes of inequality for centuries. We believe these technologies could present meaningful competition to legacy players and expand access to economic opportunity for more people around the world. At the core of DeFi is the ability for anyone with an internet connection to borrow or lend crypto assets without an intermediary. With time, we believe this could be the key to unlocking financial services for the unbanked.

As with any new innovation, approaches to DeFi protocols vary and activity in the space over the last few years has produced many important technical, structural, and social lessons. We have been very interested in a new generation of DeFi builders who are bringing a deep knowledge of financial markets and crypto-native technical skills to the task of moving DeFi into its next chapter.

As we set out to understand and research new players in the space, we were introduced to Euler, a next generation DeFi protocol for permissionless borrowing and lending of crypto assets. Euler is led by an exceptionally talented, experienced team, including alumni of Oxford University’s doctoral program, Goldman Sachs, and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Euler has taken a unique approach to addressing the risks associated with lending and borrowing crypto assets which we believe represents a meaningful step forward for the DeFi ecosystem. While incumbent DeFi protocols have made trade-offs between permissionless asset listings and capital efficiency, Euler has developed a nuanced strategy for risk management that we believe enables the best of both. Additionally, Euler has implemented improved mechanics around liquidations which we expect will facilitate the maintenance of healthy markets without being overly punitive to borrowers.

We believe that DeFi borrow/lend volumes will significantly expand in the coming years as new entry points and improved user experiences make the category more accessible. The first generation of DeFi protocols were not designed to handle risks associated with illiquid or volatile assets and have largely relied on permissioned listing systems as a result. In the Euler white paper, the team details how the protocol addresses these challenges while preserving the DeFi ideal of permissionless listing with risk-based asset tiers to protect the protocol and its users.

Today, we’re proud to announce that we are leading a funding round to diversify the Euler DAO treasury, with participation from other investors including Variant, FTX Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Jump Trading, Jane Street, and Uniswap Labs Ventures. We’re very excited to support the Euler protocol and meaningfully contribute to the DAO’s governance. Welcome Euler!

This post is for informational purposes only, and does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell securities or to pursue any particular investment strategy. This post should not be relied upon in evaluating the merits of any investment or any particular investment strategy. You should consult your own advisers as to business, financial, tax, legal, and all other related matters concerning any investment. The views expressed in this post reflect the current opinions of the authors and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Haun Ventures Management LP or its affiliates. Certain information in this post may have been obtained from third-party sources, including portfolio companies of Haun Ventures. While taken from sources that the authors believe to be reliable, Haun Ventures has not independently verified the accuracy of such information. Content is as of the date posted and subject to change without notice. Haun Ventures makes no representations about the enduring accuracy of information or its appropriateness for any given situation. Please see https://www.haun.co/disclosures for additional important information.

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By Sam Rosenblum

Haun Ventures is leading Zora’s latest fundraise to accelerate the growth of one of web3’s most important protocols. The future of the internet needs Zora—a hyperstructure that can “run for free and forever, without maintenance, interruption, or intermediaries.”

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Haun Ventures is dedicated to backing teams building a better internet. That means a web defined by more opportunity, creativity, security, and accountability than the version of the web that came before. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are a core building block that are central to the future of the web. We believe NFTs will produce a new generation of creators and makers who will enjoy more equitable economics thanks to a web built with better incentives that fairly values the contributions of those who create the culture. We also see web3 innovations like NFTs as a positive force for openness and decentralization in a web currently weighted too heavily toward centralized, opaque gatekeepers.

The future, in some ways, is already here thanks to what founders Jacob, Dee, Tyson, and the incredible team at Zora have built. Zora is an open protocol that makes it possible for anyone in the world to launch independent NFT collections, marketplaces, and experiences. We have only seen the tip of the iceberg of NFTs in web3 and believe Zora will become one of the most important protocols (and DAOs) as the NFT ecosystem and associated use cases meaningfully expand in the years to come.

Zora has already established itself as a key figure in the web3 / NFT zeitgeist, with close relationships with leading DAOs and specialized marketplaces, a popular online community publication, and well-attended weekly workshops led by Latasha, their talented Head of Community. As web3 expands and NFT use cases along with it, we believe Zora is well-positioned to become a critical layer in the web3 creator ecosystem.

Today, we are proud to be backing Zora during the next step in its journey: Zora Labs, the company building open developer and community tools, and the Zora Protocol, the DAO-governed hyperstructure. Taken together, this combination of open, permissionless protocol and tooling will enable and empower a new wave of creators and communities.

Jacob described our team as “venture contributors” and we have every intention of living up to that distinction by contributing to the growth, culture, and success of the Zora ecosystem. We feel deeply privileged to be along for the ride. Welcome Zora!

This post is for informational purposes only, and does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell securities or to pursue any particular investment strategy. This post should not be relied upon in evaluating the merits of any investment or any particular investment strategy. You should consult your own advisers as to business, financial, tax, legal, and all other related matters concerning any investment. The views expressed in this post reflect the current opinions of the authors and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Haun Ventures Management LP or its affiliates. Certain information in this post may have been obtained from third-party sources, including portfolio companies of Haun Ventures. While taken from sources that the authors believe to be reliable, Haun Ventures has not independently verified the accuracy of such information. Content is as of the date posted and subject to change without notice. Haun Ventures makes no representations about the enduring accuracy of information or its appropriateness for any given situation. Please see https://www.haun.co/disclosures for additional important information.

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