The Pitch Deck That Web3 Chat App Strains Used to Raised $4 Million

• The startup Strains is creating a chat app constructed with decentralized apps in thoughts.
• It can enable folks to check in with their credentials throughout many apps, making a single identification.
• The objective is to enhance how folks talk and transact whereas utilizing aliases on-line.

The thought for Strains, a messaging app constructed with decentralized apps in thoughts, got here from a ache level. Harvard scholar Sahil Handa and his mates bought concerned in on-line communities for crypto believers, however they discovered it exhausting to observe the folks in these areas into different apps. Somebody might go by one title on Discord and one other on Coinbase.

The chums noticed a necessity for a brand new form of social community that connects folks’s digital wallets — that are apps for securely storing and sending cryptocurrencies — they usually simply acquired $4 million in funding to construct it.

Their new startup, Strains, is creating a chat app that lets folks ship messages from pockets to pockets. They will log in with their credentials throughout a number of apps and wallets to create a single on-line identification. This makes it simpler to speak if, say, an individual needs to contact the proprietor of a nonfungible token they have been eyeing, Handa mentioned. And it brings a degree of belief to the ecosystem, he added. Earlier than an individual sends cash to somebody, as an illustration, they will examine that the one that they’re speaking to on Telegram really owns the pockets tackle that they supplied.

Earlier this month, Strains raised $4 million in a seed spherical of funding led by the solo capitalist Elad Gil, an early investor in a few of Silicon Valley’s marquee firms, together with Airbnb, Sq., Stripe, and Coinbase. The cap desk additionally consists of the who’s who of startup investing, together with blue-chip angel traders reminiscent of Raymond Tonsing, Naval Ravikant, and Balaji Srinivasan, and high-profile executives at tech firms like Coinbase, Figma, and Adobe.

The spherical had all however closed when Gil reached out about investing. Handa did not hesitate to about double the dimensions of the spherical to make room for the esteemed investor to steer it. “I’ve learn his ebook 4 occasions already,” Handa mentioned.

For his half, Gil mentioned he jumped on Strains as a result of it has the potential to alter how token-gated communities, often known as DAOs, function. Sometime, members might use Strains to create group chats that require proudly owning the group’s token to enter. They may enable members to vote on proposals and handle treasuries with out leaving the app.

“On the whole I believe some facets of social merchandise might re-emerge on the blockchain in tremendous fascinating methods,” Gil mentioned in an e-mail. “So this firm is a uniquely sturdy crew working in a really fascinating space.”

Like his cofounders, Handa has taken a go away of absence from Harvard to pursue their concept.

Take a look at the pitch deck that Strains used to boost a $4 million seed spherical.