Lens, the high-performance blockchain L2 network empowering decentralized consumer experiences, closed a $31 million strategic round led by Lightspeed Faction. Additional participants in the round include Alchemy, Avail, Circle, Consensys, DFG, Fabric Ventures, Foresight Ventures, Stellarcore, Superscript, Re7, and Wintermute Ventures, as well as angel investors Anurag Arjun, Anton Bukov, Rune Christensen, Alex Gluchowski, Aleksander Leonard Larsen, Loi Luu, Spencer Noon, and Duncan Robinson.
This investment accelerates the expansion of Lens Network’s scaling infrastructure, supporting the emergence of a new paradigm: SocialFi. With Lens, developers can build any onchain use case, while its integrated Social Features make it uniquely suited for SocialFi applications.
SocialFi represents the convergence of social and finance within the decentralized landscape. By seamlessly integrating social features into diverse applications, Lens enables users to build communities, foster collaboration, and unlock new avenues for monetization. This empowers creators, influencers, and communities to leverage their social capital to generate revenue, participate in governance, and build sustainable economic models.
Stani Kulechov, founder of Lens, stated: “Existing L2s are still too costly for mainstream adoption. To bring web3 SocialFi to the mainstream, we’re building the fastest, cheapest, and safest L2, where builders can create any onchain use case. For participants, Lens will offer the best UX and multiple monetization opportunities to build their own financial rails. Plug-and-play SocialFi features can be used with any existing application, promoting engagement and making them more sticky. From a user perspective, there is familiar sign-on, free transactions, and seamless digital asset management. Lens delivers the ease of Web2 while providing the unparalleled benefits that only blockchain can deliver.”
Samuel Harrison, Managing Partner, Lightspeed Faction, said: “We have been working closely with the Avara team for many years and we’re excited to double down and continue to support this visionary team. Web2 social is increasingly broken, with opaque feed algorithms promoting click-bait content to sell ads. Decentralized SocialFi can solve this. Lens seamlessly integrates modular, fully customizable plug-and-play onchain SocialFi features that can effortlessly be added to any application. This powerful combination will fuel a new wave of on-chain projects that deliver an exceptional user experience on par with web2 applications whilst also enabling net new ownership and monetization options.”
Lens makes users the priority by introducing gasless and signless transactions for effortless onboarding and seamless integration, removing barriers to mainstream adoption. This is aligned with Avara’s unwavering commitment to intuitive and simple design across all of its products – Aave, Family, Lens, and developer dashboards. By emphasizing user experience, and simple, seamless USD transactions, Lens ensures that users can easily and enjoyably engage with the Lens ecosystem.
In May 2024, Lens previewed the Lens Network, which can handle simultaneous instant transactions while ensuring data integrity. Initially, Lens will launch as an EVM-compatible Validium chain secured by Ethereum and convert, in a 3-phased rollout, to a Volition network built with zkSync’s ZK Stack – the modular, open-source framework based on the zkSync Era code. Leveraging ZKsync for scalability and Avail for data availability, the Lens Network empowers developers to build innovative onchain use cases that were previously not possible, while delivering a superior user experience.
This past month, Lens unveiled Lens V3, a suite of powerful, modular, and customizable on-chain Social Features such as Accounts, Usernames, Graphs, Feeds, and Groups that can be individually plugged into any application. The mainnet launch of Lens Network and Social Feature is scheduled for early 2025. Lens has secured a variety of best-in-class partners such as Across Protocol, Alchemy, Chainlink, Dune, Safe, Tenderly, The Graph, and ThirdWeb and top-tier ecosystems, including Circle (USDC), Consensys (Metamask), Uniswap, as well as new social applications. In addition, many of the current Lens v2 applications are migrating to v3. Lens Protocol v2 will no longer be actively supported by new developments.
About Lens
Lens, part of Avara, the web3 technology company, first launched in 2022. Lens provides resilient infrastructure and a set of powerful, onchain modular features that empower developers to create innovative and user-centric socialFi experiences or integrate Lens’ onchain features into any application. Lens is founded on web3 technologies that preserve user ownership, control, and portability. With its open design, built-in social features, and monetization capabilities, Lens can be integrated into any application to power web3 capabilities.
About Avara
Avara is a leading software technology company, building products based on blockchain technologies that serve users, creatives, and developers. Founded by Stani Kulechov, the company developed the Aave Protocol — one of the largest and most popular DeFi protocols in the world — as well as the Aave-native stablecoin GHO, and social networking protocol Lens. In 2023, the company acquired the crypto mobile wallet Family. Avara’s vision is a people-powered internet that benefits all. Visit Avara for more information.