Braintrust Raises $18M In Strategic Growth Funding

Braintrust, a San Francisco, CA-based global network of highly-skilled technical and design talent, raised $18m in strategic funding. The round was led by ACME and Blockchange Ventures, joined by new investors Omidyar Technology Ventures, Pantera, Multicoin, Hashkey and Variant.

CEO Adam Jackson describes Braintrust as a “labor protocol” in the same way that Ethereum is a smart -contract protocol. As such, it’s more like a non-profit, a kind of public good, he said, upon which other businesses and use cases will flourish, rather like the composability, or the Lego-like functionality of building with DeFi. 

“Our business model with Braintrust involves lowering the fees to almost zero. We charge talent zero; we charge clients 10%, that’s just meant to kind of pay our bills and sustain us,” Jackson said. “By lowering fees to zero, you enable a whole new class of big transactions that could never touch a place like Upwork, because the fees are too high.”

A blockchain-secure token is a perfect value-capture incentive and governance instrument to replace a share of stock,” Jackson said. “And when I say replace, I don’t mean a financial token, there’s no dividend.” Once the Braintrust community of freelancers is up and running, they will be able to use their tokens to vote on proposals such as fee levels, categories of work to be added, standards for allowing workers to join and so on.  

The company intends to use the funds to further accelerate the marketplace’s growth.

Read more: Braintrust Raises $18M In Strategic Growth Funding