Fedi – a U.S.-based developer of community-empowering financial and data technology – announced that it has raised $17 million in a Series A funding round and the company is set to pre-launch an alpha version of Fedi for builders later this month.
Fedi is aiming to be the world’s first federated operating system. And the company is aiming to empower individuals to collaborate through federations — made up of friends, families, neighbors, nonprofit organizations, social clubs, businesses, conferences, etc – to take control of their money, their data, and their digital lives while still protecting user privacy and autonomy. Plus it provides a resilient, privacy-protecting, and simple way for people who don’t have access to or don’t trust centralized alternatives to secure and use their data and money.
Since Fedi is built on the open-source Fedimint protocol, it makes it easy for developers to build additional apps and modules to complement Fedi’s offerings and give more options to users.
The funding round was led by Ego Death Capital with participation from TBD, part of Block, Kingsway, Trammell Venture Partners, and Timechain. The Series A funding round brings the total amount raised by Fedi to $21.21 million. And earlier seed round investors included Ten 31, Hivemind, Steve Lee, and Recursive Capital. Fedi is led by CEO Obi Nwosu, who co-founded the company with Eric Sirion and Justin Moon.
Initially, Fedi will focus on several core functions such as securely storing and transacting Bitcoin; protecting and utilizing data; and communicating securely with friends, family, and coworkers. However, the underlying technology is readymade for rapid expansion and can be adapted to do virtually all of the other things you currently use your smartphone or your computer to do.
Built on the powerful Lightning Network, Fedi scales Bitcoin and provides a way in for vast numbers of potential adopters worldwide who cannot access or do not want third parties to hold their money or their data. And Fedi’s community or second-party custody model answers the security, privacy, and trust deficiencies of these alternatives, bringing users benefits that are similar to self-custody without the technical or financial barriers to entry.
Fedi and the open-source protocol on which it is built were originally created for communities facing poverty, oppression, and loss of financial autonomy. And those communities will be important early adopters of the product, giving them the means to overcome the forces and dysfunctional systems currently limiting their agency.
Some of Fedi’s early use cases include managing remittances, savings, and microlending for disadvantaged communities and the nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that work with them. The way Fedi is built makes it equally valuable for businesses, nonprofits, and any affinity group built on mutual trust and common goals. And one possibility could be event-based communities like conferences or festivals whose organizers want a common platform to facilitate commerce and community over the course of an event limited in time and space. Nwosu teased Fedi Alpha, which is a version aimed at the builder community to be rolled out later in May, promising additional details in the coming weeks.
KEY QUOTES:
“We are excited that with so much interest in this round, we were able to select investors who are fully aligned on the future we are trying to create with Fedi, the world’s first federated operating system.”
“The Bitcoin community already knows the tremendous potential of the protocol. But what’s most exciting about Fedi is that you don’t have to be an existing Bitcoiner, or even particularly tech-savvy, to quickly start using this to solve real problems within your community.”
“Empowering communities everywhere is our first and most important goal. The idea is that any community with a handful of smartphones and a few members with basic technical literacy could secure and use money and data anywhere in the world, no matter their starting point. It’s about leveling up humanity.”
“We are still finalizing details, but we’ll have a pre-launch for builders or pioneers to create their own federations or to play with a test federation inside of the product. We anticipate a high level of interest, and we’re super excited to see what the developer community will create.”
— CEO Obi Nwosu
“Bitcoin offered a truly decentralized currency. Lightning offered truly decentralized payments for Bitcoin. And Fedi is offering a truly decentralized and federated way not only to custody Bitcoin but to take back control of everything that matters in your digital life. It’s hard to overstate what this combination of technologies makes possible, and while I expect Fedi to be at the forefront, I’m just as excited by what people are going to build around it. It is truly something that can bring value and a brighter future for billions of people.”
— Jeff Booth, cofounder of Ego Death Capital and lead investor for this series
