Teneo Protocol, a decentralised physical infrastructure network (DePIN) project, has raised $3 million in seed funding to expand its platform, which enables users to unlock and monetise public social media data. The funding round was led by RockawayX and Borderless, with additional participation from Generative Ventures and others.
Teneo’s approach to social media data access
Social media platforms generate vast amounts of real-time data used by businesses, AI developers, and researchers. However, platforms like Reddit and X (formerly Twitter) have increasingly restricted access to this data, introducing high fees for usage. These restrictions pose challenges for AI models, financial analysts, and marketing professionals who rely on up-to-date online discussions.
Teneo aims to address this issue by building a decentralised data-sharing network that rewards users for contributing public social media content. The company was founded by Leroy Hofer, Nico Prugger, Frederic Nachbauer, and Maximilian Schalkhammer, who have experience in Web3, DePIN, and data tokenisation.
How Teneo works
Teneo Protocol uses peaq, a layer-1 blockchain, to operate its decentralised system. The company offers a Web3-powered browser extension called Teneo Community Node, which allows users to collect and share public social media posts from platforms like X and Reddit. In return, users earn Teneo Points, which will later be converted into Teneo Tokens upon the network’s official launch.
This model provides an alternative to centralised APIs controlled by major social media platforms, ensuring that users — not corporations — benefit from the value of public data.
Funding allocation and expansion plans
Teneo plans to use the $3 million funding to focus on four areas:
- Product development: Expanding the Teneo Community Node ecosystem, improving user experience, and adding integrations with more social platforms.
- Team expansion: Hiring additional staff to scale the project.
- Strategic partnerships: Strengthening collaborations with AI, finance, and marketing companies that require real-time social data.
- Marketing and growth: Expanding community engagement initiatives and launching new channels to increase adoption.
Impact across industries
By decentralising social media data access, Teneo’s model has potential applications across multiple industries:
- AI development: Real-time social media data can improve AI models, sentiment analysis, and chatbot interactions.
- Finance: Investors and hedge funds can use decentralised data insights for market trends and trading strategies.
- Marketing & advertising: Brands can access real-time consumer sentiment and refine advertising campaigns.
Current adoption and network growth
Despite being in its early stages, Teneo has already onboarded over 3.5 million users across 191 countries. More than 1.1 million users have linked their digital wallets, signaling strong engagement with the ecosystem. The network currently facilitates over 15 million daily data transfers, contributing to a decentralised repository of public social media data.
“We are excited to partner with Teneo and help them deliver on their vision to give data ownership to the people. By coordinating the already existing social media user base into a DePin network, Teneo materially lowers the cost of accessing social media data, unlocking previously prohibitively costly use cases in AI, finance, marketing, and other sectors. We can’t wait to see what innovative use cases Teneo drives.” said Marek Sandrik, Partner at RockawayX.
Álvaro Gracia, DePIN Partner at Borderless added: “We’re investing in Teneo because we see an immense opportunity to capitalise on the convergence of DePIN, data economy, and scalable decentralised solutions, positioning them as a key player in the future of data-driven innovation.”
Lex Sokolin, Partner at Generative Ventures stated: “DePIN is the next foundational growth sector of Web3. Teneo unlocks the value of social network data at unprecedented scale as we enter a new era of AI and community-driven financial activity. We are thrilled to support the team and the users of Teneo protocol in exploring these emerging economic models.”
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