Ex-Coinbase Designer Raises $5M for Governance Startup Agora Agora, a cross-chain platform offering a new standard of governance tools for decentralized protocols, has secured $5 million in a seed funding round. The investment was led by Haun Ventures, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Seed Club Ventures, and Consensys Ventures, among others. Agora aims to help protocols streamline their voting systems and address the often disorganized nature of token-holder governance.

Yitong Zhang, a co-founder of Agora and a former designer at Coinbase, expressed concerns about the current state of governance voting systems, describing them as "chaotic." Zhang believes that Agora can provide a solution, stating, "With Agora, users can have all the benefits of having your equity directly on the internet without the chaos."

Agora's other co-founders, Charlie Feng and Kent Fenwick, bring valuable expertise to the table. Feng is a co-founder of the multibillion-dollar fintech company Clearco, while Fenwick served as an engineering executive at the same firm. Their combined experience in the technology and finance sectors positions Agora for success in the realm of decentralized governance.

Despite its early stage, Agora has already attracted notable customers, including Uniswap, Optimism, and Nouns. These high-profile collaborations demonstrate the growing demand for streamlined governance solutions in the decentralized ecosystem.

The $5 million seed funding will be used to invest in Agora's product development and keep pace with the increasing demand the company has witnessed in recent months. Agora is committed to building for the long term and plans to open-source its software under the MIT license, contributing to the advancement of the broader ecosystem.

This open-source approach has already garnered contributions from various developers, governance tooling teams, and startups in the development of Agora's application programming interface (API).

Agora's founders believe that token-backed voting and collective governance are crucial steps in transitioning the internet away from "walled gardens" controlled by private enterprises and toward decentralized, community-driven protocols. While the Web2 era may have mastered private apps, Agora recognizes that collective protocols are still in their infancy.

Unlike static, traditional protocols like HTTP that require little to no management, crypto protocols are constantly evolving ecosystems that necessitate consensus from a complex array of stakeholders. Zhang acknowledges that protocols may be perceived as "fundamentally less effective" than equity-governed apps (private companies) due to a lack of investment in tooling.

Agora's mission is to address this issue by prioritizing the development of MIT-licensed software for running protocols. The company understands that the outcome of this venture is uncertain and the work is challenging, but it believes the goal and timing are aligned with the industry's needs.

Conclusion: As the decentralized ecosystem continues to grow, the demand for efficient and streamlined governance solutions becomes increasingly paramount. Agora's approach to solving the "chaotic" nature of protocol governance has garnered significant interest from investors and industry leaders alike.