Crypto Startup Slide Raises $12.3M to Connect New Users to Web3 Apps

Slide, a startup that provides user experience infrastructure for decentralized applications (dapps), has raised $12.3 million in a seed funding round that was co-led by crypto-focused investment firms Polychain Capital and Framework Ventures. The funding will help Slide continue to hire more staff, build out its infrastructure and distribute its product to dapps.

A new user who wants to interact with a Web3 application often has to find third-party sources for buying crypto and holding the assets in order to spend the crypto in the app. Slide offers an all-in-one tool that keeps users within the app with features that include non-fungible token (NFT) purchases via credit card and a non-custodial wallet that’s set up with an email address rather than a browser extension.

“We’re enabling any user, regardless of their background or experience, to be able to use Web3,” Slide CEO and co-founder Teymour Farman-Farmaian told CoinDesk in an interview. “It’s really hard right now for the average user to use dapps, and it’s hard for the incremental dapp to gain any kind of exposure to normal users. Both sides are having trouble reaching each other.”

Read more: What Is a Dapp? Decentralized Apps Explained

New York-based Slide was founded earlier this year by Farman-Farmaian, a former product lead at crypto exchange Coinbase, and Sam Hatem, who previously worked as a blockchain developer at event-betting platform Polymarket. Slide came out of stealth mode alongside the funding round in a closed launch working with a select handful of partners. The company expects to have a full, open launch by the end of the year, Farman-Farmaian said.

The venture capital arm of Coinbase, USDC issuer Circle and investment firm Outlander Ventures also participated in the funding round. Individual investors included former Coinbase Chief Technology Officer Balaji Srinivasan, Dragonfly Capital partner Ani Pai and Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan.

Lead investor Framework Ventures started a $400 million fund in April to back Web3 gaming and decentralized finance.

“Under the right circumstances, we think billions of people could come on-chain over the next decade, and we think UX (user experience) infrastructure projects like Slide will play a key role in that migration,” Framework Ventures investor Rajiv Patel-O'Connor told CoinDesk in an emailed statement.