Avara Secures $31 Million Funding Led by Lightspeed Faction for Decentralized Social Protocol Lens

Avara, the parent company of Aave, Lens, and Family, has closed a $31 million funding round led by Lightspeed Faction. This funding will support the development of Lens, a decentralized protocol that aims to provide the infrastructure for social and consumer apps.

The latest iteration, Lens v3, was recently unveiled, offering enhanced capabilities and improved scalability. Lens v2 has already been utilized by various consumer apps such as NFT creation and sharing app Zora, social platforms Hey and Kaira, and subcommunity-focused app Orb.

A key focus of Avara's efforts is to address the drawbacks of centralized social networks, aiming to empower users by enabling ownership of their identity and content. By leveraging blockchain technology, Lens offers a more decentralized approach, providing users with greater control and potential for transparent revenue-sharing models.

Additionally, Lens v3 addresses the challenge of high transaction costs associated with web3 social platforms, implementing zkSync and validiums to make transactions more affordable. The protocol is defining core characteristics such as accounts, usernames, graphs, feeds, and groups, empowering developers to create rules for access to feeds and content moderation.

Avara plans to launch the mainnet of Lens v3 in the first quarter of 2025, with the funding round also drawing participation from Alchemy, Avail, Circle, Consensys, DFG, Fabric Ventures, Foresight Ventures, Stellarcore, Superscript, Re7, and Wintermute Ventures, as well as notable angel investors.

Source: Tech Crunch