Lens Protocol — Why we invested

Intro

We’re thrilled to be backing the Lens team alongside Faction and others in their strategic $31m raise on their journey to build the fastest, cheapest and safest L2 for the intersection of social and finance. There are two emerging trends in our industry that we’re particularly excited for Lens to capitalise on:

Web3 is becoming more social.

The power of social features has become ever more apparent in building Web3 products. Applications are becoming more and more social:

• Projects that initially emerged as NFT applications, such as Foundation and Gallery, have transitioned to social apps with Rodeo and Moshicam.
• Trading is becoming more social with applications such as Interface and Frens utilising the Farcaster social graph to build slick social trading experiences.
• CEXes continue to integrate social features such as PnL sharing
• TON games leveraging social features such as leaderboards, squads, competitions and referrals

As we as an industry continue to focus on improved UX, social features are a must for building sticky products and onboarding users.

SocialFi virality is even crazier than Web2.

We’ve seen in Web2 the transition from persistent to ephemeral applications as the hottest consumer applications struggle to maintain relevance (Popparazzi, BeReal, Clubhouse, Dispo). In Web3 and the recent cycle of SocialFi, the cycles were even faster:

• Friend.tech onboarded over 800,000 users in just two months
• In Fantasy.top’s first week, creators earned over 400 ETH ($1.2m)

Both examples highlight how difficult it is to build a core, persistent product experience that captures users’ attention against the tough competition from the entire internet. Here, the value of a decentralised social network powering these applications is clear. Users can access applications’ content and experiences across the network with persistent social graphs. Developers can focus on building applications in a new way, with virality in mind and derisked distribution. The shared social infrastructure allows developers to connect user relationships across experiences, not fragment them. Instead of doubling down on one core product experience, builders can focus on capturing user attention with the most engaging experiences at that point in time.

Enter Lens: the infrastructure for social and consumer apps

With Lens, developers can build any onchain use case and leverage their integrated Social Features, particularly suited for SocialFi applications. Lens is leveraging the zkSync ZK Stack to build for mainstream adoption and their Lens V3 suite to provide multiple monetisation opportunities for builders. For builders, we’re excited to see them leverage the Lens plug-and-play SocialFi features. Given the exceptional design we’re already seeing with Avara’s Family wallet, we’re excited to explore the new onchain use cases on Lens with a UX on par with Web2.

As part of Avara, Lens builds on the lessons learned since the industry’s origins. Aave, one of the most popular and early DeFi protocols, has built one of the most resilient decentralised governance systems. Avara’s proven track record of a community-first approach is apparent at every conference and online.

The robust governance system, history in the industry and demonstrable community building are part of what impressed us with the Lens team. We are excited to partner with the team and participate in this strategic raise. If you aren’t posting on Lens, join the network (our preferred app is Orb) and follow us at https://orb.club/@fabric_vc :)

For more information on Fabric’s portfolio, opportunities and our investment thesis please visit our website and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Farcaster & Orb.