Hong Kong-based Web3 social company Sleek has revealed a $5 million seed round, with the fundraising valuing the company at $50 million.
In a press release published on Friday, the company said that it had secured funds through a Simple Agreement for Future Tokens (SAFT), granting participants in the funding round the entitlement to receive tokens upon the achievement of predetermined milestones.
Participants in the seed round included Binance Labs, Shima Capital, Spartan Group, Symbolic Capital, Market Across and Big Brain Holdings.
“We are launching monetization models in our platform that are only possible through the blockchain, so talented creators from various verticals who don’t have a full team supporting them can earn sustainably,” Sleek co-founder Tania Tse said in the statement.
Sleek Card, the company’s main product which was launched in April earlier this year, is a blockchain-based social media platform that allows users to connect with each other through a card and a Telegram bot.
Sleek has sold around 15,000 cards since its launch to date and helped power over 300,000 connections, co-founder Chase Guo told The Block. According to the company’s website, Sleek currently sells two variants of its card — prism and premium — priced at about $30 and $35, respectively.
“We built a Sleek card and Telegram bot to solve a very simple problem — you don’t remember most people you meet in person, so our card and Telegram bot automatically capture data for you and remind you later on,” Tse told The Block.
The company also revealed in its announcement that it plans to launch an open marketplace that will enable domain or subject matter experts to tokenize their knowledge, providing them with the opportunity to earn income from their expertise. The marketplace is set to launch in the first half of 2024.
Sleek, initially established as a no-code metaverse platform under Binance Labs’ incubation program, pivoted to focus on Web3 because “the metaverse was still too early for mass adoption,” co-founder Tania Tse told The Block.
Tse noted that the platform’s community has organically grown through word of mouth, gathering 20,000 verified users primarily from events and conferences. The establishment of this community without relying on monetary incentives has afforded Sleek a robust user base and valuable insights into user needs, she added.
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