Kodex wants to be similar to GoDaddy but for Web3 — the evolution of the World Wide Web built with decentralized blockchains such as Bitcoin and NFTs.
The Chicago-based crypto domain company launched its beta version on Monday after announcing a $2 million seed round led by Origin Ventures. The funding included participation from Sfermion, CMT Digital and Castor Ventures.
Kodex allows users to discover, buy, sell, auction and lease Web3 domains, providing a human-readable domain rather than a random 48-character public key. Jason Heltzer, managing partner of Origin Ventures, told Chicago Inno that it is comparable to Web2 companies like GoDaddy, which grew because www.google.com is easier to remember than 172.217.5.4.
"The existing tools out there are just not sufficient for what we have in Web2 and what we believe the new capabilities of ENS [Ethereum name service] will unlock," Heltzer said.
He said one of the biggest issues that cryptocurrencies currently face is "usability."
"Crypto is not mainstream, and a big reason is that it's hard to use," he said. "Our viewpoint is that there is value in making crypto more usable."
He said that regular Web2 domains are a $6.7 billion business in the U.S.
The company's co-founder James Kokonas has been a crypto trader since high school and started Kodex after being recruited to join a proprietary trading firm out of his college astrophysics program.
Kodex's beta application is available at beta.kodex.io.
Open for business
Chicago-based Origin Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm run by a group of former founders, operators and engineers that invests in the digital native economy. Previous investments include Cameo, Veho, BacklotCars, Tock and Grubhub, among others.
Heltzer said that despite the venture funding downturn seen across Chicago and the nation in 2022 — one that he's seen firsthand with fewer entrepreneurs coming to market and fewer companies launching out of fear of a down economy — Origin Ventures remains open for business.
He added that some of Origin Ventures' best investments have been made during turbulent times.
"We've experienced up and down markets and pullbacks that have been way more severe than this one," he said. "We also have the longitudinal viewpoint that companies have built in times like this tend to be leaner, and they tend to have even deeper conviction."
