🦄 Unicorner Startup of the Week: Mem
 
 ✍️ Notes From The Editors  
Happy Monday! Today’s cover comes once again from contributor Aqil Pasha. Be sure to check out Aqil’s work on his substack and on Twitter. Every 2 weeks, he curates and shares summaries of the best tweets, reads, and listens around startups and emerging technology.
 
If you or someone you know would like to write one of our upcoming covers on a company you’re passionate about, let us know by responding to this email! Enjoy.
 
 - Ethan and Arek 🦄
 
 
Building web3’s social graph
 
 
Mem Protocol is building social tools for the world of web3. According to the company, it’s aiming to enable everyday users to own their own friend graph, explore the blockchain, and earn by sharing knowledge. Mem currently has a profile explorer and has started onboarding new members.
 
 
🔗 Check them out: mem.co
 
 
💰 Business Model
As a crypto-native startup, Mem’s business model could evolve in a multitude of ways. It’ll most likely revolve around token economics—by issuing blockchain tokens to network participants, Mem can generate value in three potential ways: native token value increasing with usage, community-determined token payments per transaction to the core team, and social token issuance/collection to tie value “capture” to an individual’s success on the platform. This will likely follow a path akin to what is known as the “progressive decentralization” playbook, where the core team will work fast and tight-knit to start with, then slowly expand community ownership and participation with time.
 
📈 Traction and Fundraising
  • Raised $3.1 million seed round led by a16z with participation from Nebula, Balaji Srinivasan, Charlie Songhurst, Jude Gomila, Charlie Cheever, and an assortment of strategic angel and seed investors
 
👫 Founder(s)
  • Abhi Vyas, CEO: Previously EIR at Commonwealth Labs
  • Don Walpola, CTO: Previously Sr. Machine Learning Engineer @ Comcast
 
💼 Opportunities
Be sure to mention you came from Unicorner when applying!
 
🔮 Our Analysis
Given that prominent centralized social networking platforms like Twitter were a core driver behind broader crypto adoption, Mem is situating itself perfectly to be the bridge between web2 and web3. Today, more people can relate to an “online identity” than to “crypto”, which is why focusing on the former will serve as a powerful way to onboard new users into web3. On top of that, Mem is centered around the atomic unit (or foundation) of “data sovereignty.” Essentially, users own their own data and can take it wherever they want—which gives them a massive advantage as they build upon that concept. Its first approach to redesigning social networking to be more user-centric and beneficial should bode well for the company in the long term. With that momentum, development velocity, and creative approaches to monetization with avenues like social tokens, Mem is bound to be an exciting startup to keep an eye on.
 
📚 Further Reading
 
 
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Made with 💜 by the Unicorner Team 🦄
 
 
🎁 Bonus Content!
Didn’t think web3 could enter any more parts of our lives? Check out Opera’s web3 browser, which promises additional privacy and security, as well as some other features.
 
 
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