$12.1 million fundraise and opening the beta program
COMMUNITY
July 10, 2019
Life is busy at Near HQ.

We’ve just closed our seed round for $12.1 million with lead investors like Metastable and Accomplice
We’re very close to releasing the Nightshade testnet
And we’ve opened applications for our beta program to bring high-quality dApp projects onto the platform
The beta program is a limited-space cohort for early adopters to launch their projects alongside the NEAR MainNet in late 2019. We’ve got two companies already locked in and accept projects on a case-by-case basis. If you’ve got a great idea for a blockchain app and want to make it a reality…
What does this mean? It means NEAR as a platform is inching further from being a research project and closer to being a living, thriving decentralized ecosystem. The platform we’re building at Near is the necessary base layer infrastructure for a new kind of web; a web of composable open services that anyone can build new applications on. This future open web will make it significantly harder for any monopoly or oligopoly of powerful actors to control the user data and public data that is necessary for applications to be made. The web we envision at Near levels the playing field and ensures that people are safe from being trapped or coerced into a service that is no longer serving them.

And this is where you come in.

NEAR is a decentralized network that lives and dies by its community. In order for this decentralized web future to come about, the ecosystem needs to grow out of the efforts of a large number of diverse people and companies. Near Inc is the main steward of the protocol right now, but that will change as more people take part in building, maintaining and governing the network and building businesses on it.

Right now, two big ways you can become involved in the NEAR ecosystem are:

Applying for the beta program with your dApp idea, or spreading the word to people who should apply
Applying or spreading the word for the open positions at Near Inc.
Beta Program
Towards the end of 2019 the NEAR mainnet will be deployed. Around this point a ton of people who hold NEAR tokens will likely want to use the apps on the network they now own access rights to, and people who hear about the launch of this new decentralized protocol will want to come and see what the fuss is all about. It’s a chance for those of us who care about decentralization to put in place the fundamental pieces that could someday grow into a new kind of Internet.

This is where you come in. We’re building the museum, but we can’t make the exhibits. We have visions of a flourishing non-exploitative tech ecosystem where people are their own agents and not rows in some BigCorp’s advertising database – and we are working hard to make sure all the nutrients are there for it to grow:

Thoughtful decentralization – over time.
Straightforward developer tooling for protecting users with powerful cryptography and consensus mechanisms.
A protective decentralized governance mechanism to steward the protocol over the long term.
The NEAR beta program is a chance to build your dApp where you have a big influence on a growing ecosystem. Smart contracts on NEAR are super easy to write and our devs dogfood everything so the tools are getting better every day. As part of the beta you will receive:

NEAR tokens for your team and to fund user accounts
A dedicated adviser from the Near team and support during development
Technical and media support for your launch on Mainnet

Applications close on July 30th.

Near Inc. Open Roles
Near Inc is building the NEAR Protocol to empower 8 billion people to take back control of their money, their data and their identity. We have an award-winning team coming from Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Niantic and MemSQL, and we are looking for world-class players to help build the future of the open web.

Developer Relations and Evangelism (SF)

Front End / UI Developer (SF/NY)

Full Stack Application Developer (SF/NY)

Network Software Engineer (SF/NY)

Community and Events Manager (SF)

Senior Marketer (SF)

Designer (SF)

Operations / HR Manager (SF)

Product Manager (SF)

Nothing quite fits? Get in touch anyways. We’re always on the lookout for people who would make great additions to the team.