Startup profile · funding coverage
Friends with Benefits funding, valuation and investors
Friends with Benefits is an Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) portfolio company currently tracked as part of our hot a16z cover
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Funding, valuation & investors
Answer-first snapshotLatest funding
Not publicly disclosed
Latest known valuation
~$100M
Treasury diversification · October 2021
Total disclosed equity funding
Not publicly disclosed
Excludes debt, grants, acquisitions, secondaries, and IPO proceeds.
Current status
private
Stage not recorded
Overview
Friends With Benefits (FWB) is a token-gated social DAO and creative community — a 'digital city' for web3 artists, builders, and creators. Founded 2020 by Cooper Turley and Trevor McFedries. a16z led a $10M treasury diversification in October 2021 at ~$100M valuation with Pace Capital, Kindred, and Spark Ventures. DAO members hold $FWB tokens for governance and access.
Why Friends with Benefits is interesting
Friends with Benefits appears on a16z’s public investment list. We include it because a16z-backed companies are disproportionately “on fire” for follow-on capital, hiring, and category creation — useful for founders mapping competitors and investors mapping active theses (AI, American Dynamism, crypto, bio, fintech).
Product & use cases
Token-gated social DAO — Discord/community hub, events, media ventures, and FWB Cities IRL programming for web3 creatives.
- Token-gated creator community membership
- DAO treasury-funded media and events
- Web3 cultural programming and FWB Fest
Key facts
- Treasury diversification (2021): $10M led by a16z with Pace Capital, Kindred Ventures, and Spark Ventures (FWB Mirror)
- Co-investors: no additional institutional investors disclosed in public sources reviewed 2026-07-24
Funding history (newest first)
Treasury diversification
2021-10 $10M Valuation: ~$100MSource: https://a16z.com/announcement/investing-in-friends-with-benefits-a-dao/
Investors in our directory
Funds linked from Friends with Benefits's profile — open a fund page for stage focus and related deal articles.
Competitive landscape
Edge: Friends with Benefits differentiates through focused product scope and a16z-backed GTM in its category — see competitors for tradeoffs vs. incumbents.
Friends with Benefits operates in a competitive category where incumbents have distribution but startups win on workflow fit. See named competitors for honest better/worse notes; we do not invent market share.
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PleasrDAO adjacent
Collective DAO with different membership model.
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Traditional social clubs incumbent
Non-crypto membership clubs; FWB crypto-native.
Notable stories
- FWB described itself as a 'digital city' — a16z thesis on DAOs beyond DeFi protocol governance.
Industries
FAQs about Friends with Benefits
Practical answers founders, operators, and investors typically search for.
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