Key Highlights

• Bluesky has announced a $100 million Series B funding round led by Bain Capital Crypto.
• The company revealed the funding shortly after CEO Jay Graber transitioned to a new leadership role.
• Bluesky says its user base has grown from 13 million to more than 43 million since its Series A.
• The investment will support product development, team expansion, and growth of the AT Protocol ecosystem.

Bluesky has announced a $100 million Series B funding round, marking its biggest investment to date as the decentralized social media platform enters a new phase of growth. The funding announcement comes just days after CEO Jay Graber stepped down from the top role to become Chief Innovation Officer, signaling a strategic shift in the company’s leadership.

Led by Bain Capital Crypto, the Series B round will help Bluesky expand its team, strengthen the AT Protocol ecosystem, and continue developing its vision for an open, decentralized social web.

Why is Bluesky announcing the funding now?

Although Bluesky disclosed the funding on Thursday, the investment round actually closed in April 2025.

The company chose to announce it shortly after Jay Graber confirmed her transition from CEO to Chief Innovation Officer.

Graber said she wanted to return to product building and innovation, while Bluesky now seeks leadership focused on scaling the business commercially.

The timing suggests the company is entering a new stage where growth, partnerships, and monetization will become increasingly important alongside technology development.

Who invested in Bluesky?

The $100 million Series B round was led by Bain Capital Crypto. Existing investors Alumni Ventures and True Ventures also participated, alongside new backers including Anthos Capital, Bloomberg Beta, and the Knight Foundation.

The latest funding builds on Bluesky’s earlier investment history. The company raised $15 million in Series A funding in 2024, led by Blockchain Capital, after securing $8 million in seed funding from Neo and several angel investors the previous year.

Bluesky did not disclose its current valuation.

How fast is Bluesky growing?

Bluesky says its global user base has grown rapidly over the past year. Since completing its Series A round, the platform has expanded from 13 million users to more than 43 million users worldwide.

At the same time, the broader ecosystem built around the AT Protocol (ATProto) has continued to expand. Several independent applications now operate using the protocol, including Skylight, a video-focused platform, Flashes, an Instagram alternative, and Surf, an open social application being developed by Flipboard.

The ecosystem has also seen the emergence of community-focused platforms such as Blacksky, which serves Black social media communities.

What is the AT Protocol?

The AT Protocol is the technology powering Bluesky and its growing ecosystem of decentralized social applications.

Unlike traditional social media platforms that operate within a single closed network, ATProto enables multiple apps to interoperate while allowing users to maintain control over their identities and social connections.

According to Bluesky, the broader “Atmosphere” ecosystem built on ATProto now contains approximately 20 billion public records, including posts, comments, likes, and other interactions.

Developer adoption is also increasing.

The company says its software development tools (SDKs) are downloaded more than 400,000 times every month, while users collectively access over 1,000 applications built on ATProto each week.

Why are crypto investors backing Bluesky?

The involvement of Bain Capital Crypto has attracted attention because Bluesky itself is not built on blockchain technology and currently offers no cryptocurrency integration.

However, decentralized technologies have long appealed to crypto-focused investors. Jay Graber’s previous work with the cryptocurrency Zcash also helped shape her thinking around decentralized online networks.

Graber has previously explained that Bluesky should not be viewed as a cryptocurrency project but rather as an evolution of the social web.

Instead of replacing centralized platforms with blockchain-based networks, Bluesky aims to create an open and distributed social ecosystem where different applications can work together through shared infrastructure.

How will the new funding be used?

Bluesky says the investment has already helped expand its engineering and product teams. The company plans to continue investing in both the Bluesky application and the underlying AT Protocol that powers its ecosystem.

As more developers build applications using ATProto, Bluesky hopes to strengthen what it describes as an “open social” ecosystem rather than a single social media platform. The funding also positions the company to compete more aggressively with established social networks while supporting independent developers building on its technology.

What does this mean for the future of social media?

Bluesky’s latest funding reflects growing investor confidence in decentralized social networking.

Rather than competing solely through content algorithms or advertising models, Bluesky is betting that open infrastructure and interoperable applications can become the foundation of the next generation of social media.

Its leadership transition also signals an important shift.

With Jay Graber moving into an innovation-focused role, Bluesky appears to be separating long-term technology development from day-to-day business operations as it scales globally.

Final thoughts

The announcement of Bluesky’s $100 million Series B highlights the platform’s rapid growth and its ambition to build a broader open social ecosystem powered by the AT Protocol. With more than 43 million users, expanding developer adoption, and fresh investment from leading venture firms, Bluesky is positioning itself as one of the strongest challengers to traditional social media platforms built around centralized networks.