Icebreaker, co-founded by Coinbase and Google veterans Dan Stone and Jack Dillé, has raised $5 million in seed funding at a $21 million valuation to expand its team and build a blockchain answer to LinkedIn.
According to a statement released on Wednesday, CoinFund led the fundraising, with participation from Accomplice, Anagram, and Legion Capital. The project wants to be “the world’s first open professional network” founded on the belief that people’s digital identities should not be owned by a single entity like LinkedIn.
“One of the next big use cases for crypto is developing a native social graph that applications can leverage. We’re proud to support Dan, Jack and their team in their mission to bring true professional identity ownership to everyone online,” said CoinFund CEO Alex Felix.
Icebreaker uses blockchain technology to allow users to log in with their email, Farcaster, or Ethereum Wallet, unifying their professional profiles and networks into a single channel. Users can instantly verify their credentials and provide verifiable endorsements to people in their network. The founders aim to create an “open graph of reputation and identity” to challenge LinkedIn’s closed system and build a public ledger of shared context and trust.
According to the founders, “digital networking is increasingly saturated with AI-driven noise and fake personas.” Dillé, former head of design at Google Workspace, says existing platforms intentionally make it difficult for us to build and use our own connections, often forcing us to pay to navigate our own networks. “We have a core belief that data should be completely user-controlled, and that people should be able to decide exactly what and how much to share with their connections without any third-party intervention.”
“The world runs on trust,” added Stone, a former program manager at Coinbase. “Until now, it’s been impossible to see because our traditional networks have optimized for engagement over signaling. But every leader knows that the loudest voice or the most followed person isn’t the best. Icebreaker lets you see who your immediate network trusts, so you can cut through the noise and surface quiet but exceptional talent and opportunities.”
“I’m excited about this new wave of consumer startups implementing encryption in practical ways.” Dan Romero“If Icebreaker can issue and maintain off-chain and on-chain credentials at scale, it could accelerate cryptocurrency adoption by years,” said Farcaster, co-founder of Web3 social network Farcaster and an angel investor in Icebreaker.
Additional details have been updated throughout.
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