The Venture Codex

Led · Seed · May 2024

Metale Protocol is building a decentralized content distribution platform that uses blockchain to establish decentralized content storage and copyright protocols. It aims to build a decentralized application ecosystem and provide decentralized services for content industries, including paid playback, crowdfunding governance, traffic acquisition, data analysis, AI creation tools, and customized smart contracts for individual content. The initiative seeks to free creators from centralized distribution constraints such as content censorship and high fees, empowering creators with greater autonomy and financial upside. Metale Protocol reports daily active users (DAU) of 80,000 and more than 500,000 registered users. The project also incubated Dapp Read2N, which completed a $2 million seed round in March last year. These metrics and ecosystem development underpin the company's current product and growth trajectory.

Participated · Seed · Feb 2023

Sending Network is a DePIN project building SendingMe, a decentralized application that combines chat, social features, and trading to give users control of their social layer. The platform integrates messaging, social interactions, and transactions in a single dApp. Sending Network completed a $7.5 million financing round structured as a SAFE that closed in October of last year. Investors in the round include Nomad Capital, Symbolic Capital, Web3.com Ventures, Galxe, SWC Global, Balaji Srinivasan and Gabby Dizon. The team plans multiple testnets this year and aims to launch mainnet in Q1 2025, according to co-founder Mason Yang. Sending Labs is building a Web3 communications stack and launched beta versions of two flagship products, SendingNetwork and SendingMe. SendingNetwork is a developer-focused SDK that helps teams build secure, fully decentralized dApps with in-app/cross-app chat, notifications, wallet or Decentralized ID (DID) logins, and NFT/token-based transacting. SendingMe is an encrypted decentralized group chat platform for users, creators, and community managers that supports smart contract-powered payments, P2P swaps, airdrops, gifting, auctions, and token-gated memberships to enable creator monetization. The company centers end-to-end decentralization and user-led data ownership, offering community management and social toolkits that leave users in control of identification, data, and assets. Sending Labs secured $12.5 million in seed funding alongside the beta launch, backed by a syndicate led by Insignia Venture Partners, MindWorks Capital, and Signum Capital with participation from K3 Ventures, Lingfeng Innovation Fund, UpHonest Capital, and Aipollo Investment. Co-founders Joe Yu and Mason Yang previously built Dolphin at MoboTap, growing it to over 200 million users prior to its 2014 acquisition, and are applying that experience to improve Web3 user experience and accessibility.