- Yup announces $3.5 million raised in a funding round.
- Prominent figures such as LD Capital, Dapper Labs, and Distributed Global led the round.
- The platform rewards curators on its platform.
Yup, the web3 social networking platform known to reward its curators, announces the completion of a $3.5 million funding round. The round was led by Distributed Global, Dapper Labs, LD Capital, Audius, and Solana.
In detail, the funds will go into further development for a new web3-native social media experience on the platform. In addition, it will also present the opportunity to empower curators across the web.
As mentioned above, the social network platform recognizes and rewards tastemakers for curating content across web2 and web3 platforms. These include YouTube, Twitter (NYSE:TWTR), Mirror, OpenSea, and many others.
Accordingly, Yup aims to monetize the value generated by influencers as well as all social media users who elevate quality content. Most often, social media platforms draw attention to content creators above others.
However, it is the tastemakers and curators who provide massive value to the masses on their platform. Therefore, Yup is making a crucial pivot in the industry by giving these individuals a chance to truly shine.
The co-founder of Yup, Nir Kabessa, says
We’re incredibly excited to partner with industry leaders to build the next generation of Web3 social. Our mission is to unlock the social capital tied to individuals’ tastes and curation. Curators are largely undervalued on web2 social media platforms and Yup plans to empower and reward them.
Since Yup’s launch date, the platform has given out over $1.6 million in the form of curator rewards. In fact, Yup has built a strong connection with the NFT community. For instance, over $300,000 is given away to NFT curators as rewards. To highlight, some earned thousands of dollars in $YUP.
Meanwhile, Distributed Global’s Johnny Steindorff says that the firm believes web3 social to be one of the most exciting categories. Adding on, he highlights that Yup is setting itself up to be a leader in this field.
Likewise, the Business Lead of Dapper Labs — Anuke Ganegoda, says that blockchain should be brought to everyday users. What’s more, Ganegoda believes that with social media, the growth of the NFT space, and NFT curation could very well send web3 to the mainstream.
Lastly, Alex Price, an individual who pre-seeded Yup, and is presently a Special Advisor at A16z Crypto adds their piece. Price says that traditional social networks come alive on privileged and minimally accessible user data silos. Thus, it seems their business models depend on this.
So, Yup being a fully open and composable Web3 social network presents a chance to empower builders and visionaries of the next great social applications. Price concludes by saying that it is exciting to see what kind of interfaces, feeds, and more will be built on top of Yup’s fully open social graph.