Web3 communication app goes after Twitter with $12.5M seed funding

Developers of one of the earliest Android-based mobile browsers are working to bring online communication to the next level by introducing it to Web3.

Sending Labs, a new startup focused on decentralized communications protocols, has secured $12.5M in seed funding to launch the Web3 communications stack.

The new platform takes on the mission of building accessible and secure Web3 communication infrastructure for developers and the community, applying end-to-end decentralization of the core of its products. With the new offering, Sending Labs aims to enable privacy-preserving communications and guarantee digital assets ownership and transfer within community chats.

The seed funding featured lead investors like Insignia Venture Partners, MindWorks Capital and Signum Capital, as well as other participants like K3 Ventures and Lingfeng Innovation Fund.

Announcing the seed raise on Feb. 16, Sending Labs also launched its first two messaging products, including SendingNetwork and SendingMe.

Now launched in beta, the products aim to assist developers in building decentralized social applications and helping the community access an encrypted decentralized group chat platform. The tools allow users to monetize their projects using smart contract payments and trading protocols through a wide variety of methods like peer-to-peer swaps, community marketplaces, crowdfunding, airdrops, gifting, auctioning and others.

Related: Blockchain-based decentralized messengers: A privacy pipedream?

“Twitter officially banning third-party clients, while millions of FTX users are cut off from withdrawing assets, has thrust decentralization and digital asset ownership back into the spotlight,” Sending Labs said in the announcement. Sending Labs co-founder and CEO Joe Yu stressed that Web3 and decentralized group messaging are the first steps to returning data ownership back to the user.

Sending Lab’s founders, Yu and Mason Yang, previously co-founded MoboTap, a company that developed Dolphin, one of the earliest Android-based mobile browsers. The browser was named one of the best iPhone and iPad apps of 2011, reaching a community of 200 million users across the United States, Europe and Japan.