Quick take:
- Aave Companies is changing its name to Avara.
- The Lens Protocol developer also acquired Los Feliz Engineering, the company behind the self-custody Ethereum wallet, Family.
- The acquisition is part of Avara’s strategy for accelerating the mass onboarding of users to Web3.
Aave Companies, the organisation behind Aave Labs, Aave Protocol and Web3 social media app Lens Protocol is rebranding to Avara, founder Stani Kulechov told TechCrunch on Thursday.
Aave, now Avara has established itself as one of the leading open-source protocols with the network boasting over $8.66 billion in total value locked according to its website.
Before its latest rebranding, the company changed its name from ETHLend to Aave, but Kulechov told TechCrunch’s Chain Reaction podcast.
However, this rebranding will not affect the company’s flagship products, including Aave Protocol and Aave Labs, which will continue to operate under the Avara umbrella.
The company is also expanding its Web3 strategy by acquiring Los Feliz Engineering, the company behind the self-custody Ethereum wallet, Family. Although the terms of the deal were not disclosed, it is quite clear what Avara wants to do with the crypto wallet.
“We really want to send a signal that we are in a time now with web3 where we’re building that interface on the existing infrastructure where people can actually interact in a way where it’s familiar to them,” Kulechov said. The company sees Family as a great avenue to help users enter the web3 ecosystem.
This is Avara’s second major acquisition following the purchase of the Metaverse mobile application Sonar in 2022.
The rebranding signals Avara’s renewed strategy of expanding beyond DeFi protocols, as it seeks to bring Web3 to the masses, Kulechov said, adding that Avara symbolizes a Finnish colloquial meaning for “seeing more than you see.”
“We’ve always been known for building decentralized finance and using the blockchain for creating smart contract-based protocols,” Kulechov said. “More recently, with Lens Protocol, we’ve been building virtually social, so decentralized social media, that basically, any developer can actually build their applications on top.”
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