Crypto Media Company Forefront Raises $2.1M to Cover World of Social Tokens

Forefront, a one-year-old media company that covers social tokens and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), has raised $2.1 million in a new funding round.

In an announcement released Thursday on the blockchain-backed blogging platform Mirror, the company said that the financing is part of a “community-driven treasury diversification round,” and that the money is coming in via fiat currency – that is, actual dollars – as opposed to crypto.

Crypto-native media companies are having a bit of a moment: Trevor McFedries’ Friends With Benefits was recently valued at $100 million after a funding infusion from crypto investment powerhouse Andreessen Horowitz, and social token issuers such as Roll and Rally have raised their profiles significantly over the past few months.

The Forefront round was cobbled together from a group of small firms and investment collectives, including 1kx, MetaCartel Ventures and Scalar Capital, as well as such angel investors as McFedries and Jesse Grushack, formerly of Ethereum software company ConsenSys.

Forefront consists of a website, a newsletter and an accompanying private Discord community. The entry fee to the Discord server is 1,000 $FF tokens, which currently go for about $6.16 a pop – that’s $6,160, not including gas fees.

“This round will help us scale our effort, onboard full-time contributors, and continue to build at the cutting edge of DAOs,” said Forefront founder Carlos Gomes.

Other contributors to the Forefront funding round included Marvin Lin, formerly the editor-in-chief of the storied music website Tiny Mix Tapes, and Austin Robey, who runs a music co-op community called Ampled.