Intuition, a decentralized infrastructure provider, has successfully raised $4 million in a seed round led by Superscrypt. The funding comes as Intuition prepares for the public launch of its protocol and first applications later this year.
Intuition’s groundbreaking platform enables users to create attestations about any subject and store the information in a manner that is easily accessible, searchable, and utilized by other applications. Billy Luedtke, the founder of Intuition and an Ethereum veteran, explains that the protocol was designed to capture the collective wisdom of the crowds on various topics while making that knowledge widely available.
“With the current complexity and challenges of determining truth for making informed decisions, Intuition aims to provide a globally inclusive and decentralized solution,” says Jacob Ko, Partner at Superscrypt. Ko adds, “Intuition’s approach of incentivizing crowdsourced knowledge and opinions has the potential to revolutionize how we disseminate, consume, and understand information. We are excited to support a team with deep expertise in data interoperability and digital identity.”
The seed round saw participation from notable investors, including Shima Capital, Avon Ventures, WW Ventures, Matrixport Ventures, Polygon Ventures, and ConsenSys, as well as various venture capital firms, decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), and angel investors. This round follows a previous fundraise in November, co-led by Andrew Keys, founder of DARMA Capital, and Joseph Lubin, co-founder of Ethereum and founder of ConsenSys.
While decentralized identity has mainly focused on sensitive credentials such as Know Your Customer (KYC) and personal identities, Intuition aims to facilitate robust decentralized identity across all aspects. Luedtke explains, “Decentralized identifiers (DIDs) should encompass almost everything, whether it’s a person, pseudonym, web3 product, organization, or even a news article.”
Luedtke emphasizes the flaws in the current system of centralized platforms like Yelp, LinkedIn, and Twitter, which shape people’s perceptions with fragmented and occasionally misleading information. Intuition, as a protocol, doesn’t dictate the truth but rather captures and presents people’s opinions on various subjects. By allowing individuals to freely share their viewpoints and verifiably attaching that data to DIDs within an open knowledge graph, Intuition aims to enhance the reputation and identity data available for everyday interactions.
“Our digital identities are essential for a thriving data-driven economy and society. However, the vast reservoir of digital knowledge on the internet remains disjointed and incomplete,” said Alex Lin, Head of Research and Investor at Shima Capital. Lin further adds, “To overcome these fragmented conditions, we need purpose-built infrastructure that enables the creation and seamless access to consolidated, trustworthy, and permissionless information. With an exceptional team, Intuition leverages web3 primitives to align ownership and incentives, propelling us towards this transformative vision. I am thrilled to support their journey towards this exciting future.”
Intuition’s protocol and middleware provide developers with easy integration of the company’s attestations and knowledge graph into their own applications. Initially, Intuition will launch with a knowledge graph explorer built on top of the protocol, offering human-readable data about wallet addresses within popular web wallets.