accelerator

Say hello to the newest crypto startups from web3 accelerator Alliance DAO’s demo day • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 9, 2022Posted in accelerator, Crypto, demo day, web3No Comments

New crypto startups forged ahead during Alliance DAO’s demo day on Wednesday amid the FTX implosion. “This is actually worse than the 2018 bear market,” Qiao Wang, a core contributor at Alliance DAO, said, referring to the tentative plans for Binance to absorb competitor FTX. “Today, everyone was caught off guard, myself included … the last three months of working closely with our founders in All9, I’m hopeful again. It’s people like them that will push our industry forward.” The most recent cohort, known as All9, for Alliance DAO, a web3 accelerator and builder community, presented their ideas on Wednesday during a demo day, exclusively covered by ZebethMedia. It seems like it was just yesterday that we covered Alliance DAO’s previous demo day, but four months have passed. Twice a year, Alliance DAO brings in web3 founders for a three-month program. To date, Alliance DAO alumni have created over $10 billion in market capitalization, Wang said. There were about 953 applications for this cohort, but only 17 teams were chosen and graduated from the program. Many of the teams are looking at improving crypto themes like proof-of-physical-work, wallet experience for everyday users, product-driven protocols, crypto B2B products, on-chain data and verticalization, Wang said. “The cohort is a fairly representative sample of what’s happening in the industry at large.” The cohort focused on a range of subsectors and products across web3 like authentication, liquid staking, crypto wallets and decentralized machine learning, among others. About 38% of the startups focused on the Ethereum ecosystem, while Polygon made up 21% and Solana 17%. Mentors include Colleen Sullivan, co-head of ventures at Brevan Howard Digital; Mike Dudas, founder of LinksDAO, The Block and an investor for 6th Man Ventures; Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder of Solana; Ryan Selkis, founder and CEO of Messari; Mounir Benchemled, founder of ParaSwap; Amir Bandeali, co-CEO of 0x Labs; and Ryan Wyatt, CEO of Polygon Studios. Here’s a breakdown of the 17 startups: Company name: Ora What it does: Search engine for web3 Founders: Dennis Antela Martinez, Sanny Kim, Jacob Shiohira Stage: Seed The pitch: Ora is building a search engine for web3 as the ecosystem continues to expand, co-founder Jacob Shiohira said during his pitch. “Blockchain data is confusing and we can see this in explorers today,” he said. For crypto to go mainstream, there need to be products that every person can understand, he added. Ora aims to combine sequel engines, dashboards and explorers through one interface. It began with indexing data from the layer-1 blockchain Solana, but plans to expand across web3. Company name: Mensari What it does: Quickbooks for web3 Founders: Vidur Jain, Manuj Paliwal Stage: Seed The pitch: Mensari aims to help businesses involved in web3 with its own Quickbooks platform. As organizations integrate crypto, their bookkeeping complexity is “skyrocketing,” co-founder Vidur Jain said during his presentation. Mensari built a double-entry accounting system offering operational accounting and portfolio accounting for organizations with web3 idiosyncrasies like asset swaps, payment streaming, NFTs and liquidity provision. The platform is live on blockchains Ethereum and Polygon and has 15 beta customers to date. Company name: Tensor What it does: Solana-focused NFT aggregator Founders: Richard Wu, Ilja Moisejevs Stage: Seed The pitch: Tensor is aiming to build a Solana-focused NFT aggregator. Current NFT marketplaces cater to retail investors, not traders, and as more professionals enter the NFT market, they need more sophisticated tooling, Ilja Moisejevs said during his pitch. Tensor aims to provide Solana-based NFT traders more services so they can “fire off hundreds of transactions across eight of the largest marketplaces with just a single click.” Company name: Raleon What it does: Web3 marketing analytics Founders: Nathan Snell, Adam Larson Stage: Seed The pitch: Raelon is building a marketing analytics firm for web3. The current marketing technology doesn’t cater to web3 tools or on-chain and off-chain data, so it needs to be revamped to consider new technologies, co-founder Nathan Snell said. Raleon combines blockchain data with Web 2.0 data to create an “enriched identity” so projects can target web3 users, Snell said. The platform is looking for strategic investors to source customers. Company name: Spexigon What it does: Proof-of-physical-work for drone imagery Founders: Adam Killam, Peter Szymczak, Bill Lakeland, Alec Wilson Stage: Seed The pitch: Spexigon is a proof-of-physical-work platform for drone imagery where drone owners can earn crypto by capturing imagery in a fly-to-earn rewards system. Pilots are rewarded with tokens once the algorithm verifies images and moves it into the marketplace for consumption by businesses and developers. The platform has had over $1.5 million in revenue over the past eight months after gaining interest from government agencies, engineering firms and rail companies, to name a few. It has raised $5.5 million in a seed round with participation from Alliance DAO, Dapper Labs, and others. Company name: SlashAuth What it does: Web3 authentication Founders: Ned Rockson, Nicolas Salhuana Stage: Pre-seed The pitch: SlashAuth is a web3 authentication platform that aims to help developers create distributed and secure identities across both Web 2.0 and web3 ecosystems. It cryptographically merges identities across both layers so users can have access to all of their accounts through one single sign-in, co-founder Nicolas Salhuana said during his presentation. It currently is in closed beta and has raised $3 million from investors like Alliance DAO and Y Combinator. Company name: Stride What it does: Cosmos-focused liquid staking Founders: Riley Edmunds, Aidan Salzmann, Vishal Talasani Stage: Seed The pitch: Stride is building a liquid staking platform for layer-1 blockchain Cosmos. Users can trade their tokens for Stride’s ST tokens, then Stride stakes those tokens for users to be used throughout the Cosmos DeFi ecosystem. The platform was launched eight weeks ago but has $7 million in total value locked, $150,000 of recurring revenue and over 8,000 users, co-founder Vishal Talasani said. Stride has raised $6.7 million from investors like Pantera, Distributed Global, North Island Ventures, 1confirmation and Staking Facilities. It’s looking for LP commitments in exchange for Stride tokens. Company name: Ethos What it does:

Station F turns its main startup program into an acceleration program • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 25, 2022Posted in accelerator, Founders Program, Startups, Station FNo Comments

Station F, the iconic startup campus in Paris, is revamping its Founders Program completely to turn it into an acceleration program. Founders who decide to join the accelerator will get many different benefits. They’ll also have to hand out a 1% equity stake to Station F. “We are changing the flagship program of Station F. Everything is changing but the name,” Station F director Roxanne Varza told me. With the Founders Program, Station F is looking for entrepreneurs who are just getting started. Even if these teams haven’t necessarily found a product-market fit, they can apply to join the program. Of course, the first thing these startups get when they join the Founders Program is some office space at Station F. They will then start with an intensive 6-week program with workshops and classes. For instance, they’ll learn about building a startup team and product-market fit. After that, startups get another six weeks to iterate and execute. They pitch in front of everyone after this initial phase. Startups then stay at Station F for another 12 months. They pitch their startup once again at the end of the program. The new Founders Program lasts 15 months in total, which is much longer than the original Founders Program. “With short programs, startups want to stay and we spend too much time on changes and logistics,” Varza said. In order to remain focused on these startups, Station F is actually shrinking the size of the Founders Program. Station F could accept up to 200 startups with its old Founders Program. It now aims to accept 25 startups in the Founders Program with two batches per year. Station F tries to match each startup with an advisor that will be very hands-on. For instance, some advisors include the founders of Alan, Swile and The Sandbox. Station F recommends that startups incentivize the advisor by adding them to the cap table. It can vary depending on the advisor but Station F recommends at least 0.2% in equity. The startup campus is already running a first batch with 21 different companies. These companies are focused on four verticals — web3, fintech, impact and creator economy. Verticals will change in future batches. And, yes, Station F is taking equity in those startups for the first time. “At first, we want to remain founder friendly. Some people told us it’s not a lot, others say that it’s a lot,” Varza said. “But Station F is not here to take 50% in equity. We just want to prove that we have skin in the game and that we will remain engaged,” she added. Station F relies a lot on personal recommendations from other people in the tech ecosystem. The internal team then screens the applications to pick some startups. Applications for the next batch will start near the end of November. There are also other programs on the campus as well as partnerships with other companies so that they can run their own program at Station F. All the other programs remain unchanged.