21-year-old founder raises $5 million for NFT fan engagement – TechCrunch

Natalia Murillo was an undergraduate at the University of Southern California when a professor taught her about the cryptographic technique of zero-knowledge proofs. She has been immersed in web3 and blockchain technology ever since, dropped out of college and invested the approx. $5,000 she had to her name in NFTs before starting a web3 company, Koop.

After two months in private beta, Koop, which 21-year-old CEO Murillo co-founded with CTO Conner Chyung, just launched to the public. At its core, Koop is a protocol that helps creators and communities launch NFT-based membership cards to raise funds for projects, Murillo told TechCrunch in an interview.

Koops, as they are called, are owned by their members, who vote on how to use the group’s own funds, Murillo said. Koops can be formed for anything from launching a venture fund to creating a new clothing brand, although the use cases seem to be mainly aimed at content creators looking to build communities of engaged fans.

The platform has already seen $850 million in volume from the coffers of its 50 active communities that buy and sell NFTs, according to Murillo, who noted that the company has a waiting list of 8,500 groups looking to form Koops. The company says registrations on its platform are growing 4x week over week. Current Koop users include Mems NFT, The Heart Project, 1confirmation, musicians with creatorDAOs and gaming guilds, it said.

The foundation of Koop: Daniel Ho, Natalia Murillo, Ivy Tsang and Conner Chyung. Image credit: Coop

Koop also announced today that it is coming out of stealth with $5 million in funding led by 1confirmation and web3 creating finance-focused Variant Fund, with participation from Palm Tree Crew, Day One Ventures, Ethereal Ventures, DeFi Alliance, Volt Capital, PearVC, DCF God, 0xmons and angel investors including crypto influencer Cooper Turley, ex-Coinbase CTO and a16z investor Balaji Srinivasan and former Sequoia partner Liu Jiang.

Murillo describes a Koop as a “socio-economic network”, contrasting it with traditional social networks. It is similar in some ways to a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), a blockchain-based community governance structure that gained popularity during last year’s crypto bull run. But Koops have some important differences from DAOs, Murillo said.

“Koop is lighter touch, it’s lighter, and it’s more focused on social experiences and less on the nuances of, is each individual member voting, or is it truly decentralized,” Murillo said. Creators using Koops, for example, can still choose to have sole control over their group’s wallet and execution of decisions, but can leverage the Koop community as a sort of “temperature check” to guide their decision-making.

Neither do DAOs have to be decentralized, but the ethos around them tends to be more focused on delegating voting rights fairly to each group member. Koops, on the other hand, can be more centralized, tend to be smaller in size, and give groups the ability to organize around a short-term goal or cause and disband the Koop once it’s achieved, Murillo added.

“We participate in fictional worlds or digital communities with more fervor and passion than our local democracies, and so I felt there was a big disconnect in terms of what the communities offered to the amount of time and investment I shared with them,” Murillo said of her motivations behind starting the company.

She shared the example with YouTuber and creator Logan Paul to explain the utility of a Koop. Murillo said she’s been a subscriber to Paul’s “Impaulsive” podcasts for years, but she hadn’t felt engaged in the community surrounding the product — “all I do is subscribe. I’m basically paying taxes to comment and buy a piece of merchandise,” Murillo said.

A screenshot of Koop’s chat function. Image credit: Coop

Paul’s Koop, 99 Originals, gives community members rights they wouldn’t otherwise have as consumers of his content, she added.

“I get the opportunity to ask, should we make investments? If I have ideas, he supports them, the community supports them. I am an owner in the storytelling, the direction, the mission and all the content that is incubated out of it,” Murillo said of her membership in the 99 Originals Koop.

The NFT-based membership passes help each member feel unique, unlike a traditional social network, according to Murillo.

“Inside Koop, you are not replaceable. You are actually a unique individual in the context of this larger ecosystem and because you are not just an investor but an owner, we actually bring your membership card or NFT to life by attaching your contributions, your work and your actions, all on the chain,” Murillo said.