demo day

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:

Meet Seoul-based accelerator SparkLabs’ 19th batch of startups • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 3, 2022Posted in Apps, demo day, early-stage startups, Seoul, SparkLabs Korea, Startup Accelerator, Startups, VentureNo Comments

SparkLabs Korea, a Seoul-based seed to early-stage accelerator, held a demo Day on Thursday for its 19th cohort of companies. The latest demo day marks its tenth year after SparkLabs launched its accelerator program in December 2012. The accelerator has backed more than 270 startups since its inception in 2012, co-founder and partner of SparkLabs Eugene Kim told ZebethMedia. The program has two cohorts a year — one starting in January and the other in June — Kim said, adding that the program is 16 weeks long. SparkLabs admits 10 to 15 companies per cohort and invests up to $100,000 into each startup in exchange for 6% equity. Kim noted that the investment is made either with a SAFE (simple agreement for future equity) or stock purchase agreement — a decision that is up to the startup to make. During its program, SparkLabs provides funding, mentorship and access to administrative and legal advisory support for startups. In addition, participating startups get co-working space, will attend weekly classes and have access to four to six mentors who have expertise in various industries, not just in South Korea but global regions. SparkLabs, a member of the global accelerator network (GAN), has been using international best practices for accelerators from the beginning, Kim said. He added that its partners and mentors are all former entrepreneurs and have global business experience in both the U.S. and Asia. The accelerator also operates other government-supported programs like TIPS, a tech incubator program for startups in South Korea, and manages later-stage investment funds, Kim noted. SparkLabs began in Korea to find and help local Korean startups in their seed stage and help them go global. Though the majority are based in Korea, the accelerator gets applicants from other countries looking or planning to enter Korea or Asia, according to Kim. When asked if SparkLabs Korea is a subsidiary of SparkLabs Group, Kim said it’s not a group structure. Each accelerator entity, such as SparkLabs Korea, SparkLabs Taiwan and SparkLabs Cultiv8, is a separate entity with its own accelerator fund. Kim said in an interview with ZebethMedia that as the program focuses on early-stage seed startups, some teams pivot or change their business focus as they try to find product market fit (PMF). “Not all teams end up pitching at demo day. If the teams feel they want to focus on building their traction or PMF, they can choose to pitch at a later demo day,” Kim said. Here’s the list of nine companies in the most recent cohort at SparkLabs. The 19th cohort ends with a demo day on November 3. Vetflux: A telehealth veterinary platform that provides an artificial intelligence-based chatbot for vet clinics and pet owners. It offers two apps connecting vets with their pet patients. The Vetflux app is for pet owners to get the latest information about pet care, while the other, called Vetflux +, is for vets to organize workflows. Amondycare: Amondycare’s app lets mental health therapists manage their workflows and administrative work from patient appointments to sales. YKring: A social app, Kevin’s Club, helps college students make the most of their college life outside the library or dorms. YKring says it enables users to find out what’s going on in the community to find clubs or a group of people with similar interests to do activities together. YKring, which launched its service in January, claims that it has more than 2,500 users with $35,000 in sales as of October 2022. Its monthly subscription fee is ~$20. DataBean: This startup develops a cooling system for data centers. Its service SmartBox allows for thermal management. Fasket: Fasket is a quick commerce startup that operates an instant grocery delivery business in South Korea. Gyverse: Gyverse develops a fridge for dry-aged meat using IoT and AI. Users can dry age beef at home by interconnecting Gyverse’s smart devices to its app to monitor the temperature and humidity. Moverse: A 3D motion marketplace that allows users to access and buy 3D motion data sources for the use of metaverse, games, movies, animation and augmented reality. R-Materials: R-Material’s platform, called the Hybrid-generator system, enables solar and wind to convert power sources. MyShop Cloud: An online to offline (O2O) platform that wants to digitize the value chain of dried fish, from wholesale to the retail market. Its service Dasiwoorida, which analyzes the dried fish price and transactions, recommends products for customers. SparkLabs is currently open to applications for its 20th batch program until November 11. The accelerator will finalize its selections in December and looks to start the 20th batch in January. South Korea, which attracts the third largest amount of venture capital funding in Asia — about $6.45 billion annually — following China and India, currently has 16 unicorns to date.