Primal, a technology company leveraging open-source communication protocols to give users back agency online, announced the launch of its flagship application following a $1M seed round led by Ten31 with participation from Hivemind, and others. Built on the Nostr protocol, Primal is a social media application designed for complete freedom of expression without the risk of de-platforming.
The launch of Primal comes at a pivotal moment when new players are entering the space to challenge legacy social media platforms, and more venture capital funds are being directed toward the development of open-source ecosystems like Nostr.
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Beyond its flagship application, Primal builds scaling infrastructure and discovery services for Nostr. Primal is the first Nostr company to open source its entire product stack including its caching and discovery service, Primal Server, as well as, its web, iOS, and Android apps. Its powerful discovery features including search, trending content, and analytics, make primal.net the go-to destination for people who wish to explore Nostr. With this seed round, Primal will focus on accelerating the development of an immersive user experience in a burgeoning Nostr ecosystem.
“We are building Primal to offer an alternative to closed social media platforms“, said Miljan Braticevic, CEO of Primal. “With Nostr, we now have an open publishing protocol with a monetary network attached to it in the form of zaps – bitcoin lightning micropayments. This combination will change everything. We are proud to partner with investors like Ten31 and Hivemind, who are already able to see this future and are willing to fund startups like Primal to build it.”
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“Nostr is a robust, decentralized, and open communication protocol that will revolutionize the way we communicate online”, said Matt Odell, managing partner at Ten31.“Now more than ever, users value privacy and freedom of expression, and we are proud to support Primal’s mission of making this protocol accessible to billions of people around the world.”
With Primal, users can pay each other bitcoin “zaps” through the app by clicking the lightning bolt button on posts they appreciate. Primal also uses this information for its discovery feature. Posts that receive more bitcoin are featured in their trending lists.
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