Sock, a San Francisco, CA-based provider of a self-custodial crypto investment app, recently raised $2.8M in Seed funding. In conjunction with the announcement, Rick Johanson, CEO and Co-Founder, replied to our questions about the company, the product, the funding and future plans.
FinSMEs: Hi Rick, can you tell us a bit more about yourself? What’s your background?
I am Rick Johanson, CEO and Co-Founder of Sock. I’ve spent over 10 years working as an operations leader, partnering with some of the tech and entertainment industry’s biggest names, like Google, Lucasfilm, Zynga, and NerdWallet. My time at Zynga and NerdWallet led me to meet Sock’s co-founders, Bryan Levine and Chris Titterton. They had previously worked together as early-stage employees at MyFitnessPal.I’m an experienced angel investor and startup advisor, focusing on areas such as Web3, fintech, edtech, and AI. Apart from my professional work, I also serve as a board member of Creativity Explored—an organization dedicated to supporting artists with developmental disabilities. In my free time, I am actively involved in initiatives to advance UX education at historically black colleges and universities.
FinSMEs: Let’s speak about Sock. What is the market problem you want to solve? What is the real opportunity?
The traditional financial system is not meeting the needs of today’s customers. It’s plagued by biases and inequities, prompting many to seek alternatives. Cryptocurrency has become a popular choice for people looking to earn additional income or hedge against inflation, but it still hasn’t gained the trust it deserves. The SBF trial had a significantly negative impact on the reputation of crypto. However, it also highlighted the need for a safer, more transparent solution. This realization prompted my co-founders and me to launch Sock, the first self-custodial investment app explicitly designed to help users build wealth through crypto investment. We were also inspired by a close friend who had endured a significant financial setback due to poor investment decisions to emphasize token education and financial literacy in this changing landscape.
FinSMEs: What are the features differentiating the product from competitors?
Sock’s mission is to help people build wealth with crypto safely, and we do that by providing tools and insights to help make wise investments, such as:
- Self-custody: The Sock app gives users complete control over their financesand is completely “self-custodial.” This provides extra security to ensure usersnever lose access to their funds if something happens to Sock’s platform.
- Account Abstraction: The new blockchain technology allows Sock users totransact without incurring network fees or having to own Ethereum to transact. Additionally, it makes it easy to set up automated orders so that you can create upper or lower thresholds to trigger token sales, helping to minimize losses and take profit automatically. These features are designed to simplify the user experience and replicate the familiar traditional finance products that many customers know and love.
- Sock Score: The Sock app provides Sock Risk Score ratings across an A-F scale for every token in the app. This lets customers see how one token’s risk profile compares to the overall market and helps uncover tokens that pair with your investment strategy.
- Token Vetting: Because Sock’s mission is to help people build wealth with crypto safely, we take a strong stance against tokens that do not provide any utility, which is why we do not allow users to invest in memecoins.
FinSMEs: You just raised a new funding round. Please tell us more about it.
The Sock team is pleased to announce the completion of the new funding round, led by Haven Ventures, with participation from Designer Fund, Expansion, Spacecadet Ventures, Sunflower Fund and Olive Capital, as well as notable angels, including Tim Chen (CEO of NerdWallet), Mike and Albert Lee (founders of MyFitnessPal,) Dalpat Prajapati (Co-founder of Copperx and former Head of UX at Polygon) and others. Sock plans on utilizing these funds to cover the operating costs, hire more technical and UX talent, and fund our go-to-market campaign.
FinSMEs: Can you share some numbers and achievements of the business?
We’re very early days given our launch last week, but we’re happy to share that we’re seeing exciting growth and engagement from our community so far. We’re grateful and humbled by the feedback we’ve received to date, especially the amazing reviews we’ve received in the App and Play stores.
FinSMEs: What are your medium-term plans?
We’re laser-focused on responding to the incredible feedback we’ve gotten from our
community so far. We plan on announcing a major update to the app before the end of the year in response to the biggest and most consistent piece of feedback we hear. Stay tuned.
FinSMEs
22/11/2023