Former Coinbase and Google employees established Icebreaker, an open-source on-chain professional network, to compete with LinkedIn.
Former Coinbase and Google employees have raised $5 million to support Icebreaker, an on-chain professional network that aims to be the first open-source platform for professional connections.
The platform aims to compete with LinkedIn by developing an on-chain solution for the service.
As global adoption increases, investment in crypto start-ups continues to steadily increase.
Icebreaker Secures $5 Million in Funding
Icebreaker, a web3 startup valued at $21 million, has secured $5 million in a seed funding round to create an open source platform that facilitates professional connections.
CoinFund spearheaded the funding round, which also included Anagram, Accomplice, and Legion Capital.
Co-founders Dan Stone and Jack Dille emphasized that a professional’s digital identity should not be owned by a single corporation, but rather made public.
According to them, LinkedIn imposes restrictions on the management of connections, necessitating the use of paywalls to navigate.
With the web3 model, users can promptly verify their credentials and endorsement within their network by creating an open graph identity.
“Imagine if you click the login button, and then you see the entirety of your network across LinkedIn, Twitter, Farcaster, and email. Imagine how many intros could be more effectively routed if you could see the full picture of how you are connected with somebody.”
Users can use this much more open model to easily explore opportunities online while avoiding digital networking loaded with fake personas.
An example of this was when Dille’s LinkedIn read the CEO of Google which shows the vulnerabilities of web2 regarding the inability to verify claims.
Alex Felix, the CEO of CoinFund, expressed his satisfaction with the professional digital identity platform that the ex-Coinbase and Google staff had developed.
Former Coinbase and Google Employees Draw Interest
The community has taken notice of the co-founders’ affiliations with Coinbase and Google, respectively.
Jack Dille served as a design lead at Google Workspace, while Dan Stone was a program manager at Coinbase and was a member of Google’s marketing platform.
Furthermore, VC and institutional interest in web3 has increased this year as a result of its rapid adoption.
This resulted in the spot crypto ETF frenzy in the United States, which drove the price of assets to new all-time highs.
