Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) leads a $14 million funding round for Rye. Other investors in the round included Solana Ventures, GOAT Capital, L Catterton, Electric Ant, Electric Feel Ventures, Andre Iguodala, Javale McGee, and James Beshara. The funding will apparently be used to build out the product and engineering teams and to start the decentralization process.
Rye’s team of founders includes former Reddit engineers Bhargava and Saurabh Sharma, Twitch co-founder Justin Kan, Scribd co-founder Tikhon Bernstam, Robin Chen (former head of Zynga China) and Jamie Quint, former head of growth at Notion.
Rye lets merchants, stores, and customers transact openly and with minimal fees. Rye plans for the API to eventually be fully decentralized on the Solana blockchain.
The Rye API includes an integrated one-click checkout, Amazon and Shopify product data, and connections to affiliate programs. The platform aims to benefit shoppers with a unified checkout experience that allows for shopping from multiple stores in one cart. The checkout will also include web3 features, such as the ability to receive cash-back rewards in the USDC stablecoin and purchase non-fungible token (NFT) releases.
