Paradigm Leads $16M Funding Round for Hang

Hang, a Web3-powered platform that connects brands with members, went live Thursday and announced that it raised $16 million in a Series A funding round led by Paradigm.

The funding will be used on the product, engineering and go-to-market teams with a focus on “speed and scaling,” Hang co-founder and CEO Matt Smolin told CoinDesk in an email.

Other investors in the round included Tiger Global Management, Thirty Five Ventures, Night Ventures, Warby Parker and venture firm Good Friends, among others.

The Hang platform lets brand program managers set up membership rules, add benefits and rewards and connect to third-party services.

The membership programs use non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to incentivize customers with rewards and perks.

“Between the democratization of e-commerce infrastructure making it easier than ever to create a new brand and new privacy changes from Apple and Meta, it has never been more expensive for brands to acquire customers and incentivize high-value actions,” Smolin said.

“Hang offers brands a new way to offset these acquisition costs and increase the value of their existing user base, by harnessing the unique advantages of NFT technology to transform the relationship they have with their customers and build a new one rooted in shared incentives, reciprocity and community,” he added.

Hang is already collaborating with Budweiser, Pinkberry, Bleacher Report and Superfly, the company behind the Outside Lands and Bonnaroo music festivals.

Paradigm is one of the largest investment firms in the crypto industry. Last November, the firm launched a record-setting $2.5 billion fund, which was topped in May by a $4.5 billion fund from Andreessen Horowitz.