Farcaster, a SocialFi application promoted by Vitalik Buterin, secured $150 million in Series A funding, achieving its $1 billion valuation goal, according to CoinDesk on May 21. Co-founder Dan Romero confirmed the investment through the app.

Paradigm led the funding round, with participation from a16z crypto, Haun Ventures, Union Square Ventures, Variant Fund, Standard Crypto, and others. Co-founder Varun Srinivasan emphasized the company’s strategy of maintaining a lean but efficient team, currently consisting of only 13 employees, with plans to recruit more engineers.

Since its public launch in October 2023, Farcaster has gained 350,000 paid registrations. Its peak growth occurred in February 2024 with the introduction of Frames, a feature that transforms posts into interactive applications. This innovation drove a surge in daily active users (DAUs), which now stands at nearly 45,000, marking a 30% increase since February 11, according to Dune Analytics.

Vitalik Buterin’s endorsement has played a significant role in the platform's popularity. Following the hacking of his X (formerly Twitter) account in September 2023, the Ethereum founder turned to Warpcast, praising Farcaster’s initiatives.

The funding announcement comes seven months after Farcaster launched its mainnet on the Optimism Layer-2 network and two years after its initial Seed round in May 2022. Romero also revealed that the company has yet to utilize 80% of its previous funding.