Ex-Coinbase Employee Raises $5M to Create LinkedIn Rival

On-chain professional network, Icebreaker founded by former Coinbase and Google employees has raised $5 million to support its goal as the first open-source platform for professional connections. The platform seeks to rival LinkedIn creating an on-chain solution to the service. Investment in crypto start-ups continues to mount up as global adoption grows. 

Icebreaker Raises $5 Million

Icebreaker, a web3 startup valued at $21 million has raised $5 million in a seed funding round to develop an open source to connect professionals. The funding round was led by CoinFund with wider participation from Anagram, Accomplice, and Legion Capital among others. Co-founders Dan Stone and Jack Dille explained a professional’s digital identity should not be owned by a single company but rather be public. 

According to them, LinkedIn restricts how connections are managed, requiring paywalls to navigate. With the web3 model, users can create an open graph identity and instantly verify credentials and endorsement within their network.

“Imagine if you click the login button, and then you see the entirety of your network across LinkedIn, Twitter, Farcaster, and email. Imagine how many intros could be more effectively routed if you could see the full picture of how you are connected with somebody.”

Users can leverage this much open model to seamlessly seek opportunities online and avoid digital networking filled with fake personas. An example of this was when Dille’s LinkedIn read the CEO of Google which shows the vulnerabilities of web2 regarding the inability to verify claims. Alex Felix, the CEO of CoinFund expressed delight as the ex-Coinbase and Google staff created a professional digital identity platform.

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Former Coinbase and Google Employees Draw Interest

The fact that the co-founders hail from Coinbase and Google respectively has drawn the attention of the community. Jack Dille was a design lead at Google Workspace while Dan Stone worked at Coinbase as a program manager and was a part of Google’s marketing platform.

This year, VC and institutional interest in web3 has surged following increased adoption. This led to the spot crypto ETF craze in the United States pushing the price of assets to new all-time highs.

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