Crypto influencer Irene Zhao’s startup raises $4.5 million over two funding rounds

Founded by cryptocurrency influencer Irene Zhao, the social Web3-network So-Col (Social Collectables) raised $4.5 million following two funding rounds.

Let’s go $SIMPs ?? https://t.co/AaxFlSEIlr

— SO-COL ? (@socol_io) March 28, 2023

On March 28, the platform announced a $1.5 million investment from DWF Labs.

In May 2022 the network raised $3 million in a round led by Blockchain Capital. At the time So-Col valued at $100 million.

Zhao declined to comment on the startup’s valuation after the investment from DWF Labs.

Including the $1.75 million seed funding in February 2022, the total So-Col investment reached $6.25 million. The project’s founder noted that all three rounds were conducted as SIMP token sales.

CoinGecko tracks the coin’s price since January 19, 2023, after listing on KuCoin. At that time the price stood at $0.05. At the time of writing, SIMP trades at around $0.017 — 79% below the February high of $0.079.

According to Zhao, it was in February that DWF Labs invested in tokens with a one-year lockup period.

The Ethereum-based social network will allocate the raised funds to move toward a multi-chain concept by adding support for a range of first- and second-layer blockchains, including a solution from StarkWare.

As a Web3 platform, So-Col enables content creators and brands to use their own NFTs to pay for membership and access exclusive content.

The network currently counts about 300 authors, Zhao said. The project plans to grow this number by rewarding with SIMP or cash.

The platform also aims to list on other centralized exchanges such as Binance, OKX, Bybit and Bitget, So-Col’s founder added.

In March 2023, the AI-powered Web3 social network OP3N raised $28 million after a Series A funding round.