Token launch and management protocol, Strata, has closed a $1.5 million seed round led by Multicoin Capital. Solana Ventures, Asymmetric Partners, Alameda Research, and Starting Line also participated in the round.
The company, founded by software developer Noah Prince, wants to make launching tokens more accessible on Solana, a rising layer-1 blockchainnetwork. It offers a no-code solution for people to launch and sell tokens, as well as offer tokens in exchange for donations.
“This is a huge development for non-technical creators and radically lowers the barrier to entry,” John Robert Reed, a partner at Multicoin Capital, told Decrypt. So far, Strata has seen the protocol gain traction with social token creators and play-to-earn games.
It’s also being used by DAOs, or decentralized autonomous organizations—particularly subsets of larger DAOs that want to have some autonomy from the rest of the organization. For example, the Grape DAO, a Solana-based social network, has created tokens for its videographer or game developer communities.
Most Solana launch pads, or platforms that help people launch tokens, require users to pitch their idea before they extend their services.
“If you apply and you’re selling a token that’s going to raise like $3 million, they’re going to court you. They’re going to waive the fees. They’re going to do everything they can to get you to launch,” Strata CEO and founder Noah Prince told Decrypt.
But for people launching smaller tokens, like ones meant to be used in play-to-earn games, it’s a harder sell. The vetting process, which is meant to select only high quality tokens with trustworthy teams, can crowd out small projects.
“And that upsets me because how are you going to get any kind of composability and experimentation if you can’t even launch your token,” he said.
Composability refers to ability to combine and recombine components of a system—or, in this case, the Solana network—so that they can be used for different applications. It’s a bit like wanting to have lots of differently shaped and sized legos because it’s hard to build much if you only have large blocks.
Strata wants to make sure the very small and uniquely shaped legos make it onto the network. No-code and low-code solutions like the protocol showing up in crypto pretty recently, but it’s by no means a new concept.
Content management systems, like WordPress or Drupal, have become so ubiquitous that it’s easy to forget that maintaining even a simple website used to mean learning HTML, CSS, and PHP.
It’s an apt analogy. Prince himself compares Strata’s launchpad to Wix, a cloud-based web services company, in that it guides the user through the process by posing questions about what kind of token they’re creating and how they want the tokenomics to work.
But after that, it can become more complex if the user wants more control.
A straightforward token that has the same features as most other tokens on Solana is the easiest to launch. But Strata also offers software developer kits so people can tweak what’s under the hood themselves.
When people use Strata to launch a social token and opt to use the protocol to manage the price relative to supply and frequency of sales, Strata collects a fee. For users who want to set the price and manage supply themselves, Strata collects a smaller fee.
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