Releap Protocol Raises $2.1 Million to Power the Next Generation of Social Apps on Sui and Arweave
Releap Protocol has announced a successful funding round of $2.1 million, upping its potential to become a central player in the decentralised social media landscape. With its utilisation of the Sui and Arweave blockchains, it has achieved a robust, scalable architecture, and is designed to power the upcoming wave of social apps and onboard the next billion users onto decentralised social networks.
The $2.1m Funding Round
The funding round garnered support from over 30 prominent venture capitalists and angel investors:
Sui Foundation
GBV Capital
Big Brain Holdings
Shima Capital
Arweave Foundation
Assembly Partners
DWeb3 Capital
Impossible Finance
Solar Eco Fund
MoveBit
Plus many more made a significant investment in the vision of Releap.
Recent Partnership with Carbon Browser
Beyond the funding success, Releap Protocol also recently announced a significant partnership with Carbon Browser, an all-in-one, decentralised Web3 browser.
Using Carbon for the Releap App will ensure an even more seamless and anonymous Web3 social journey. - Releap Protocol
Releap Protocol's Journey
Previously recognised for its work as an NFT music marketplace on Solana, Releap has pivoted towards creating a decentralised social media platform, in response to the market dynamics and the potential growth in the sector.
The underlying architecture of Solana that Releap was using was not adequate enough to be used to build a decentralised social media platform. The shift towards the Sui Network, in combination with the existing utilisation of Arweave seemed a fitting response, offering a superior architecture for Releap's ambitions.
Aaron, the founder of Releap Protocol, discussed the transition, "We felt the architecture was superior", Aaron said, continuing, “The way you write contracts, you can write [them] independently of each other, that run in parallel.”
The transformation from an NFT music marketplace to a decentralised social media platform necessitated some technological changes. Releap found its ideal match in the Sui Network, which offered Dynamic Fields - a feature allowing developers to extend their structures with new data on-the-fly. After a development period of 4-5 months, the newly minted Releap Protocol was born, attracting over 5,000 registered profiles since its inception.
Despite these changes, Releap Protocol has stayed true to its commitment to Arweave. While initially, all music NFTs on Releap were stored and directly streamed from Arweave, Releap Protocol plans to store all social media images, videos, and other assets as NFTs on Arweave in the near future. Due to time constraints, Releap is temporarily using IPFS and pinning services, with the intent to fully integrate Arweave in the coming months.
"We love Arweave obviously, for us it was just about survival", said Aaron, referencing the temporary integration of IPFS due to their time constraints when building up Releap Protocol.
Releap is setting an example for the future of the Web3 social revolution, challenging the data hegemony of Big Tech, by helping users to regain control of their own data. With an expanding reach and a focus on onboarding the next billion Web3 users, the future looks promising for Releap.
