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While media attention While the focus has largely been on crypto’s best-known players, the Web3 industry has a number of startups trying to make a name for themselves despite bearish-market conditions.
TechCrunch+ got to see several of the startups we’re covering exclusively during the Web3 Accelerator Alliance DAO’s latest demo day for All11 program participants.
(Check out previous Alliance DAO demo days we covered in July 2022, November 2022, and May 2023.)
The three-month-long accelerator program brings Web3 founders together twice a year for a minimum of 10 hours per week. According to the alliance’s website, “Each startup in our latest cohort received an average of more than 50 introduction requests after Demo Day,” from leading VC firms like Paradigm and MultiCoin. The alliance also invests $250,000 in startups participating in the program.
The most recent cohort had 1,083 applications, down 36% from its previous batch, All10, which had a record 1,692 applicants. Of that number, only six teams made it through and are graduating from the program, and two startups are also presenting to the All10 (the final group had 16 graduating projects). “This is the most elite group in our history,” Qiao Wang, a lead contributor to Alliance DAO, said during the alliance’s demo day.
All11 Group’s advisors include Ken Warwick, founder of Synthetix; Jason Yanowitz, co-founder of Blockworks; Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko; Ilja Moisejevs, Co-Founder and CEO of Tensor (from ALL9 Group of Alliance); and David Vorick, co-founder of Sia and lead developer of Glo.
Here are the details of the eight startups:
company’s name: tie
What it does: Fiat will serve crypto on- and off-ramp for LatAm
founded by: Felipe Montes, Juliana Montes
stage: Seed
the pitch: Cravata is a Colombia-based platform that aims to combine traditional financial infrastructure and fiat currencies with cryptocurrencies for businesses looking to get into the Web3 in Latin America. Its services include on- and off-ramps for converting fiat to crypto (and vice versa), as well as market making and cross-border transfer systems. Its investors include Circle Ventures, Framework Ventures, Alliance DAO and others. It’s rounding up a seed.
company’s name: thunder
What it does: onchain trading terminal
founded by: jackson denka
stage: Seed
the pitch: Thunder, a product of Eversify, is an onchain “intent-based” trading terminal that aims to give users an “unfair advantage in every way possible,” according to its website. The platform aims to provide users with support for major blockchains and exchanges like OpenSea, Uniswap, Base, Polygon, Blur, and Solana, to name a few. It is currently looking for strategic investors for its seed round.
company’s name: slipagotchi
What it does: NFT-powered sleep game
founded by: Anton Kramin also
stage: Seed
the pitch: Sleepygotchi is a mobile app game that aims to help people develop healthy sleep habits through gamifying sleep with NFTs. The application is currently available on Apple’s App Store. Its game rewards users daily for meeting sleep goals and also offers the ability to collect items in an effort to motivate people to sleep better. The game has 14,000 monthly active users and a 41% one-year retention rate, its founder Anton Kraminkin said during the demo day. According to its website, 60.2% of users reported improved sleep after using its games. In January, it raised $3.5 million from investors including 6th Man Ventures, Sfermion, 1kx and Shima Capital. It is currently raising from strategic investors.
company’s name: blockcast
What it does: decentralized broadcast distribution network
founded by: Omar Ramadan, Lisa Lee
stage: Seed
the pitch: Blockcast is a decentralized content distribution network and marketplace that aims to help broadcasters drive more traffic and reach wider audiences. Its co-founder, CEO and CTO Omar Ramzan said during the demo day that the Berkeley-based content delivery platform aims to help broadcasters by bridging the gap between television and online streaming by tokenizing unused TV spectrum to distribute content. To do. Ramadan said the cost to stream a 4K movie to 10,000 viewers is typically about $1,000 through a server like Cloudflare, but with Blockcast that cost can be reduced by up to 96%. It is currently growing the seed cycle.
company’s name: tailwind
What it does: Cosmos-based smart wallet
founded by: bao mai
stage: Seed
the pitch: Tailwind is a crypto wallet focused on the Cosmos ecosystem. It aims to help users focus on decentralized applications by keeping them off chains and allowing users to choose a single gas token for transactions. Tailwind’s founder Bao Mai was previously a founding engineer at Junoswap, an automated market maker. It’s rounding up a seed.
company’s name: tazz
What it does: debt market for protocol
founded by: Mark Cinelli, Alan Hampton, Anthony Fahden
stage: Seed
the pitch: TAZ is a decentralized lending protocol that aims to make the buying and selling of loans linked to digital assets more efficient. It allows users to trade loans through the decentralized exchange Uniswap V3. According to its website, it accepts any type of crypto collateral. “The company is discussing a much larger protocol to issue a $5 million loan,” TAZ CEO and co-founder Alan Hampton said during his Demo Day presentation. It’s rounding up a seed.
company’s name: upshield
What it does: Web3 Security Platform
founded by: Paul Vijender, Preston Thornburg
stage: Seed
the pitch: UpShield is a full-stack security platform for Web3 protocols, assets, and communities. It aims to be user-friendly for people building applications who are non-security experts. Paul Vijender, co-founder and CEO of Upshield, said during his presentation that the startup launched two weeks ago after being in beta mode for two months and currently has an ARR of $120,000. Its engine has over 100 Web3 threat detectors as well as on-chain and off-chain coverage for projects across smart contracts, application front ends, and social channels. It can work with Web3 applications built on eight blockchains and networks, such as Coinbase’s Base, Ethereum, Avalanche, Binance, and Polygon. It’s rounding up a seed.
company’s name: in cum
What it does: Encrypted Ethereum Virtual Machine
founded by: Remy Guy
stage: Seed
the pitch: Inko Network is an encrypted Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) layer-1 protocol that aims to help decentralized applications (dApps) operate on-chain. Its technology is fully homomorphic encryption (FHE), which is jargon for encryption that allows calculations to be performed on encrypted data without decrypting it – meaning that its confidentiality is maintained throughout the calculation. As said, FHE helps users write and compute private smart contracts. The network can be used for many different use cases like card games and private voting and is live on Devnet (Developer Network) with its mainnet launch in 2024, founder Remy Guy said during his Demo Day presentation. Said. Inco is currently raising a seed round.
building in bad times
These eight companies are not manufacturing under the most favorable conditions. “The crypto industry is probably near the bottom of the cycle in terms of venture funding and developer activity,” Wang told TechCrunch. Despite the cold market, there were many new startup ideas among the Alliance startups. And if history is any indication, the winners of the next cycle are probably being built now.
