Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal's Web3 accelerator Beacon's first batch of 13 projects graduated.
Written by: TechCrunch
Compilation: Karen, Foresight News
In December 2022, Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal announced the launch of Beacon, a Web3 startup accelerator, which will fund early encryption projects through guidance and financial support.
Mentors for the accelerator program include Jack Lu, CEO and co-founder of Magic Eden, Rob Behnke, co-founder of Halborn, Brendan Farmer, co-head of Polygon Zero, Dan Kim, VP of business development and listing at Coinbase, and CEO and co-founder of Decentral Games Miles Anthony et al.
The program's first "Cohort 0" projects were demonstrated on Tuesday. Sandeep Nailwal told TechCrunch that in Cohort 0, the Beacon team talked with more than 1,000 projects, and finally 15 startups participated, of which 13 companies successfully "graduated". For the "Cohort 1" tranche, Beacon will invest $250,000 in each project in the program, with a post-money valuation of each project at around $8 million. However, the "Cohort 0" batch as a trial run will be subject to availability.
The funding program of the Beacon Accelerator is not limited to specific blockchains. Most of the teams in "Cohort 0" are building Cross-chain applications, but there are more teams building on Ethereum. Of the 13 companies, 29 founders come from nine countries and 13 cities, Kenzi Wang, Beacon core contributor and co-founder of Symbolic Capital, said on Demo Day.
The startups in this batch focus on a range of crypto industry segments, such as gaming, infrastructure, decentralized lending, and development tools. Almost all startups are at the seed stage, and only Community Gaming has reached the A-round financing stage.
Here are the details of the 13 startups in Cohort 0:
Arcana: A Web3 toolkit for developers
Founders : Mayur Relekar, Aravindh Kumar
Stage : Seed round stage.
According to the official website, Arcana investors include Republic Crypto, Woodstock, Digital Currency Group, Symbolic Capital, SHL Capital, Fenbushi Capital, LD Capital, Arcanum Capital, Paradigm Shift VC, AU21 Capital, and individual investors Coinbase former chief technology officer Balaji Srinivasan, Polygon co-founders JD Kanani and Sandeep Nailwal et al.
Introduction : Arcana hopes to help developers supplement the technology stack with tools to help build secure decentralized applications, allowing developers to easily ensure the security and privacy of user data. Arcana's core tools include user authentication, tools that can store data and access control on its decentralized network. Arcana is currently available on the Beta testnet.
Blinkmoon: game development studio
Founders : Hugh Behroozy, Hajeir Mazinani
Stage : Seed round stage.
According to PitchBook information, Blinkmoon investors also include Binance Labs, NFX, Tess Ventures, etc. Symbolic Capital, the Web3 venture capital fund backed by Sandeep Nailwal, has also invested in the project.
Introduction : Blinkmoon is building an independent game development studio, focusing on the Web3 field. Before that, members of the team worked on visual effects for Guardians of the Galaxy and Game of Thrones, and worked on League of Legends: Wild Rift, NBA, Dead Rising and Rainbow Six Number" and other game series production.
ChapterX: An Immersive 3D Platform
Founder : Chase Guo
Stage : Seed round stage.
According to the official website, ChapterX investors include Binance Labs, Spartan Group, Hyperedge Capital, Big Brain Holdings, GBV Capital, etc.
What it is : ChapterX is an immersive 3D platform for users to build fully customizable worlds and avatars while experiencing a full Web3 virtual life.
Colexion: GameFi Ecosystem
Founder : Abhay Aggarwal
Stage : Seed round stage.
Colexion investors include Polygon, Brevan Howard, Jump Capital, Symbolic Capital, Firestarter and GSR, among others.
What it is : Colexion is a card-based GameFi ecosystem that aims to bring Web 2 games into the Web3 ecosystem with fantasy-focused content. Colexion's Colexion Core system provides services such as minting, marketplaces, bridges, wallets, and more.
Community Gaming: E-sports platform
Founder : Chris Gonsalves
Stage : Series A financing stage.
In April 2022, Community Gaming completed US$16 million in Series A financing, led by SB Opportunity Fund under SoftBank Group, with participation from Animoca Brands, Binance Labs, BITKRAFT Ventures and Griffin Gaming Partners, CoinFund, Hashed, Multicoin Capital, Shima Capital , Polygon Studios, and ConsenSys Mesh, among others, as well as angel investors Jeff Zirlin, co-founder of Axie Infinity, and Gabby Dizon, co-founder of Yield Guild Games.
What it is : Community Gaming aims to be an all-in-one esports competition platform. The platform is powered by blockchain payment technology based on Ethereum and Solana, and provides players, organizers and game developers with the tools to create, promote and participate in esports tournaments. Also, in Community Gaming, users can earn money from the game by completing tasks.
Cubist: Web3 Developer Tools and Infrastructure
Founders : Ann Stefan, Deian Stefan (Associate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, UC San Diego), Riad Wahby, Fraser Brown
Stage : Seed round stage.
Introduction : Cubist is a provider of development tools and infrastructure so that developers can easily build, test and deploy across Multichain and Cross-chain Dapp . Together, Cubist team members have published more than 80 research papers on related topics such as computer systems, programming languages, security, and cryptography.
FastLane: MEV Solutions on Polygon
Founders : Alex Watts, Jordan Hagan
Stage : Seed round stage
Summary : The FastLane protocol focuses on generating revenue for validators, as well as improving the efficiency of algorithmic traders and relieving network participants of the pressure when they are "overwhelmed" with redundant transactions, without the need to install or manage custom software on validator nodes.
Meta Apes: Web3 Games
Founders : Taylor Shim, Nicholas Carr
Stage : Seed round stage
Meta Apes was previously selected as the fifth batch of BNB Chain's Web3 Accelerator Program "Most Valuable Builder" (MVB) and received investment from Binance Labs.
Introduction : Meta Apes is a free win-to-earn mobile Wb3 game built on BNB Application Sidechain (BAS). Players can build their own cities and communities while competing and exploring to win a "race to space". The game is designed to combine traditional game elements such as massively multiplayer online (MMO) strategy with Web3 elements such as in-game currency. Members of the team have worked at companies such as Ubisoft, Gameloft, Zynga, AppLovin, and Epic.
Mystic Moose: Web3 Game Development Studio
Founder : Mike Levine
Stage : Seed round.
In December 2021, Mystic Moose completed a $5 million seed round led by Animoca Brands, Courtside Ventures, Republic Crypto, Alameda, AU21, Sfermion, Polygon Studios, Collab+Currency, Sky Vision Capital, Spartan Capital, HyperEdge, Momentum6 and Fourth Revolution Capital and others participated in the investment.
Bio : Mystic Moose is a Web3 platform, game studio and publisher with team members who have worked for Activision, LucasArts and Electronic Arts. Mike Levine's first game, Planet Mojo, was built on his scalable backend platform, Sumatra, a browser-based interconnected game server. Its auto chess game Mojo Melee is currently undergoing Alpha game testing and plans to launch it on the web and mobile in the first quarter of this year. The studio is backed by companies such as Animoca Brands, Republic Crypto and Polygon Studios.
Nillion: Web3 Infrastructure
Founders : Alex Page, Andrew Yeoh, Andrew Masanto
Stage : Seed round stage.
In December 2022, Nillion completed a US$20 million financing led by Distributed Global. Participating investors include AU21, Big Brain Holdings, Chapter One, GSR Markets, HashKey, OP Crypto and SALT Fund.
Introduction: Nillion is a Web3 infrastructure startup focused on securing the storage, computation, and fragmentation of data on the Internet. Nillion Technology Nil Message Compute (NMC) is purpose-built for decentralized secure storage and computing. Nillion founders include former employees of Uber, Indiegogo and Hedera Hashgraph as well as executives from Coinbase and Nike.
Davos Protocol: Stable Asset Loan Protocol
Founders : Varun Satyam, Julian Hayward, Filipe Gonçalves
Stage : Seed round.
The stable asset of Davos Protocol is DAVOS, which uses the stable benchmark of Liquidity pledge and over-collateralization to solve the Liquidity lock problem. Specifically, Davos Protocol accepts tokens from multiple PoS networks as collateral to borrow DAVOS stable assets, and then, Davos Protocol runs a variety of low-risk strategies to generate income from the Collateral asset and redistribute them to DAVOS collateral providers and DEX Liquidity Provider. The Davos Protocol risk team manages the protocol's monetary policy to balance optimal price stability with yield, voting weekly on the distribution of rewards between stakeholders and Liquidity Provider. Strategic partners for the project include Polygon and ANKR .
Timeswap: Decentralized Lending Protocol
Founders : Ameeth Devadas, Harshita Singh, Ricsson Ngo
Stage : Seed round stage.
Timeswap announced the completion of its seed round of financing in October 2021, but did not disclose the financing amount. Investors participating in this round of financing included Multicoin Capital, Mechanism Capital, and Defiance Capital.
Introduction : Timeswap is a decentralized lending platform and an AMM protocol powered by Polygon . The main features of Timeswap include flexible interest rates and mortgage factors, users can flexibly decide their risk-reward ratio, and allow users to create any Ethereum-based ERC20 token pool by providing appropriate Liquidity.
Further reading: " Five minutes to understand Timeswap, an AMM -based non-clearing lending agreement "
Ylide: wallet communication protocol
Founders : Ignat Shapkin, Kirill Zubkov, Danila Simonov
Stage : Seed round
Brief : Ylide is a decentralized protocol for wallet-to-wallet communication, allowing Multichain messaging, data storage to smart contracts, and end-to-end encryption. Ylide also has its own mail client, and developers can also integrate communication features into their projects.
