Polygon and Reddit Co-Founder’s VC Launches $200 Million Web3 Fund

Polygon and Reddit Co-Founder Alex Ohanian’s 776 venture capital firm have announced a $200 million investment fund. According to the press release, they are on a mission to boost and support the growth of social media and Web 3 projects.

To recap, Polygon is an Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution. It is a sidechain that aims to tackle Ethereum’s scalability issue. It enables developers to connect and build Ethereum-compatible blockchain networks to achieve this. So you can think of it as “Ethereum’s Internet of Blockchains.

Meanwhile, Alex Ohanian is a social media and blockchain heavyweight. In 2005, he co-founded social media news site Reddit. Then, he left in 2010 and returned as Chairman in 2014 before resigning again in 2020. Then, he emerged himself in the blockchain space as a seed investor in Coinbase, Opendoor, Patreon and more!

So what exactly is Polygon and Reddit Co-Founder Up To?

Last Friday, the Polygon team shared that the partners are “exploring better ways for humans to connect online.” They also asserted that “The driving force behind Web3 is that a better version of the Internet is possible, and it can provide support for users through the platform.”

Meanwhile, Ohanian commented that Web3 is still in its very early stages and the “most obvious opportunities right now are in gaming and social.” Apart from this investment fund, he also partnered with Solana Ventures to invest $100 million in building decentralized social media.

So what’s the grand vision behind this massive investment fund?

Ultimately, the initiative will focus on “gaming properties and social media platforms built on Polygon’s scalable infrastructure.”

Ohanian added, “We have already seen some of the best products founders in our portfolio start building on Polygon, and I’m excited for Seven Seven Six and Polygon to play a big role in shaping what the new Internet looks like.”

How About Reddit?

Two months ago, the platform had everyone asking: “Is Reddit building an NFT Marketplace?” Speculations began circulating when they posted on Greenhouse that they are looking for a senior backend engineer. The listing noted that the role is for a platform responsible for “millions of users to create, buy, sell and use NFT-backed digital goods.”

Reddit has always been a blockchain and crypto-friendly platform. Thanks to a strong subreddit community, many tokens, projects, and platforms were able to moon. So if the speculations are true, then it wouldn’t surprise anyone. As it is, NFT Collectors and enthusiasts are already using the platform to decide which NFTs are worth purchasing. So launching an NFT Marketplace would be like extending Reddit’s services.

Here at NFTEvening, we are looking forward to the future crossovers between social media, blockchain, Web3 and, of course, gaming!