Overview of 17 Selected Startups for Alliance DAO Demo Day
During the FTX collapse, we still saw many new and promising crypto startups.Author: Jacquelyn Melinek
Compiled by: Shenchao TechFlow
On Wednesday, the "Demo Day" event of Alliance DAO took place during the FTX collapse, and we still saw many new and promising crypto startups.
"The situation today is actually worse than the bear market of 2018," said Qiao Wang, a core contributor at Alliance DAO, referring to Binance's plan to absorb its competitor FTX. "Today, everyone is caught off guard, including myself… Working closely with the founders of All9 over the past three months has filled me with hope again. It is people like them who will gradually push our industry forward."
All9 is a Web3 accelerator and builder community of Alliance DAO, showcasing some of their great ideas during Wednesday's demo day.
Twice a year, Alliance DAO invites founders in Web3 to participate in a three-month program. So far, alumni of Alliance DAO have created over $10 billion in market value. The event received approximately 953 applications, but only 17 teams were selected and graduated from the program.
Wang stated that many teams are exploring improvements in cryptocurrency themes, such as proof of physical work, user wallet experience, product-driven protocols, cryptocurrency B2B products, on-chain data, and verticalization.
"This cohort of participating projects can serve as a fairly representative sample of what is happening across the industry."
The participating projects focus on a range of sub-industries and products in Web3, such as authentication, liquid staking, crypto wallets, and decentralized machine learning. About 38% of the startups focus on the Ethereum ecosystem, while Polygon accounts for 21% and Solana for 17%.
Mentors include:
· Colleen Sullivan, Co-Head of Venture Capital at Brevan Howard Digital;
· Mike Dudas, Founder of LinksDAO, The Block, and investor at 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 are the specific introductions of these 17 startup projects:
Project Name: Ora
Product Direction: Web3 Search Engine
Founders: Dennis Antela Martinez, Sanny Kim, Jacob Shiohira
Round: Seed Round
As the ecosystem continues to expand, Ora is building a search engine for Web3, co-founder Jacob Shiohira said in his presentation. "Blockchain data is confusing, and we can see that today with browsers." He added that to make crypto mainstream, products need to be understandable to everyone. Ora aims to combine a sequential engine, dashboard, and resource explorer through a single interface. Ora initially serves Solana but plans to expand to the entire Web3.
Project Name: Mensari
Product Direction: QuickBooks for Web3
Founders: Vidur Jain, Manuj Paliwal
Round: Seed Round
Mensari aims to help businesses participating in Web3 through its QuickBooks platform. Co-founder Vidur Jain said in his presentation that as organizations integrate cryptocurrency, their accounting complexity "increases dramatically." Mensari has built a double-entry bookkeeping system that provides operational accounting and portfolio accounting for organizations with Web3 characteristics, such as asset swaps, payment flows, NFTs, and liquidity provision. The platform is live on the Ethereum and Polygon blockchains and currently has 15 test clients.
Project Name: Tensor
Product Direction: NFT Aggregator Focused on Solana
Founders: Richard Wu, Ilja Moisejevs
Round: Seed Round
Tensor aims to build an NFT aggregator centered around Solana. Ilja Moisejevs said in his presentation that the current NFT market caters to retail investors rather than traders, and as more professionals enter the NFT market, they need more sophisticated tools. Tensor aims to provide more services for Solana-based NFT traders so they can "execute hundreds of trades across the eight largest markets with just one click."
Project Name: Raleon
Product Direction: Marketing Analytics for Web3
Founders: Nathan Snell, Adam Larson
Round: Seed Round
Raleon brings a marketing analytics tool to Web3. Co-founder Nathan Snell said that current marketing technologies are not suitable for Web3 tools or on-chain and off-chain data, so improvements are needed to account for new technologies. Snell stated that Raleon combines blockchain data with Web 2.0 data to create a "rich identity," allowing projects to target Web3 users. The platform is seeking strategic investors to find customers.
Project Name: Spexigon
Product Direction: Physical Proof of Work for Drone Imagery
Founders: Adam Killam, Peter Szymczak, Bill Lakeland, Alec Wilson
Round: Seed Round
Spexigon is a physical proof of work platform for drone imagery, where drone owners can earn cryptocurrency by capturing images, creating a rewards system from flying to earning. Once the algorithm verifies the images and transfers them to the market for businesses and developers to consume, pilots are rewarded with tokens. After gaining interest from government agencies, engineering firms, and rail companies, the platform has generated over $1.5 million in revenue over the past eight months. It has raised $5.5 million in seed funding, with participation from Alliance DAO, Dapper Labs, and others.
Project Name: SlashAuth
Product Direction: Web3 Authentication
Founders: Ned Rockson, Nicolas Salhuana
Round: Pre-Seed Round
SlashAuth is a Web3 authentication platform designed to help developers create distributed secure identities in the Web2.0 and Web3 ecosystems. Co-founder Nicolas Salhuana said in his presentation that it cryptographically merges identities from both layers, allowing users to access all their accounts with a single login. It is currently in closed testing and has raised $3 million from investors such as Alliance DAO and Y Combinator.
Project Name: Stride
Product Direction: Liquid Staking Focused on Cosmos
Founders: Riley Edmunds, Aidan Salzmann, Vishal Talasani
Round: Seed Round
Stride is building a liquid staking platform for the Layer 1 blockchain Cosmos. Users can exchange their tokens for Stride's ST tokens, which Stride will stake on behalf of users for use throughout the Cosmos DeFi ecosystem. Co-founder Vishal Talasani said the platform launched eight weeks ago and has already locked in $7 million in total value, with recurring revenue of $150,000 and over 8,000 users. Stride has raised $6.7 million from investors such as Pantera, Distributed Global, North Island Ventures, 1confirmation, and Staking Facilities. It is seeking LP commitments in exchange for Stride tokens.
Project Name: Ethos
Product Direction: Crypto Wallet for Sui
Founders: Nadia Eldeib, Jared Cosulich
Round: Seed Round
Ethos is a "super app" wallet for the Sui blockchain. Co-founder Nadia Eldeib said in her presentation that the wallet offers Web 2.0-like features, such as logging in with email, enabling developers to provide a better user experience. The wallet has built an on-chain game where Ethos users can pre-approve transactions through their wallets. Since its launch last month, the Chrome extension wallet has had over 32,000 users weekly. Ethos has raised $2.4 million from FTX, Tribe Capital, and Mysten Labs.
Project Name: Chain ML
Product Direction: Decentralized Machine Learning
Founders: David Mller, Ethan Jackson, Ron Bodkin
Round: Seed Round
Chain ML is a decentralized machine learning platform. It allows smart contracts and dApps to leverage machine learning, aiming not to compromise on censorship resistance, tamper-proofing, or availability. It utilizes decentralized databases, oracles, and computing networks to provide censorship resistance. Chain ML recently raised $4 million in a seed round led by iOS G, with its MVP launching in Q1 2023.
Project Name: Legends of Venari
Product Direction: Pokémon for Web3
Founders: Jason Du, Drew Elkins
Round: Seed Round
Legends of Venari adopts the concept of Pokémon GO and brings it into the digital world through the metaverse. Co-founder Jason Du stated on demo day that its software development kit shifts the focus from ownership of game assets to ownership of the entire game ecosystem. Since its launch 10 months ago, the game has averaged 3,000 active users weekly and has collaborated with several NFT communities, including Fractal. It raised $5.4 million in a seed round led by Lattice Capital.
Project Name: Sort
Product Direction: Firebase for Web3
Founders: Jason Zucchetto
Round: Seed Round
Sort aims to provide a simpler way for developers to build dApps. "Creating a decentralized application is still incredibly painful," said founder Jason Zucchetto during the demo day. Sort hopes to simplify the process of writing open-source dApps by providing developers with toolkits and plug-and-play code. Zucchetto mentioned that over 200 people view their tutorials daily. Currently, Sort is in the process of raising a seed round.
Project Name: Persona
Product Direction: Group Chat for DAOs
Founders: Raeez Lorgat, Will Doenlen, Alexander Green
Round: Seed Round
Persona is building group chat as a "lightweight DAO," co-founder Raeez Lorgat said during the demo day. Over the past year, the popularity of DAOs has surged, but tools for forming and managing DAOs remain scattered across platforms. Persona aims to simplify this process, allowing users to pool and manage funds for any specific shared purpose within minutes. So far, Persona has raised $4.5 million from investors such as ECCO Capital, Alliance DAO, CYGNI Capital, and Protagonist.
Project Name: Ostium
Product Direction: On-Chain Commodity Marketplace
Founders: Kaledora Kiernan-Linn, Marco Antonio Ribeiro
Round: Seed Round
Ostium is a platform aimed at bringing commodity markets on-chain. Co-founder Kaledora Kiernan-Linn stated during the demo day that non-institutional investors cannot access many commodity markets. Kiernan-Linn added that this issue can be addressed through decentralized finance. By reflecting off-chain assets on-chain through oracles like Pyth, protocols like Ostium aim to provide partial exposure to assets at market prices. Ostium is currently raising a seed round and hopes to collaborate with investors who have expertise in liquidity provision.
Project Name: Slise
Product Direction: Web3 Native Advertising Platform
Founders: Oleksii Sidorov, Griffin Kao
Round: Pre-Seed Round
Slise is a digital advertising platform focused on Web3, designed to analyze on-chain activity to provide customized advertising across the entire Web3 ecosystem. It can be used on blockchains such as Ethereum, Solana, and Polygon. Slise won the Polygon Build It hackathon last summer and is currently raising a seed round.
Project Name: Space and Time
Product Direction: Decentralized Data Storage
Founders: Nate Holiday, Scott Dykstra
Round: Series A
Space and Time is a decentralized data platform aimed at helping businesses grow through smart contract technology. It uses "Proof-of-SQL" cryptographic technology, allowing business logic in traditional centralized systems to be automated and directly connected to smart contracts. It also plans to integrate the platform with Microsoft Azure. In September, Space and Time raised $20 million in a strategic round led by Microsoft's M12.
Project Name: 0xPass
Product Direction: Decentralized Applications (dApps) with Web 2.0-like User Experience
Founders: Keon Kim, Krish Chelikavada
Round: Pre-Seed Round
0xPass aims to bring a Web 2.0-like user experience to dApps, making it easier for mainstream users to use and adopt wallets. Some of its Web3 user experience changes include onboarding new users without wallets, pre-approving transactions, and integrating 0xPass with just a few lines of code. Its SDK closed testing was launched last week, and it is testing with 10 projects. So far, it has raised $600,000 and is in the process of raising its seed round.
Project Name: Niural
Product Direction: Compliant Cryptocurrency Payroll Platform
Founders: Nabin Banskota, Nami Baral
Round: Seed Round
Niural is a compliant cryptocurrency payroll platform. It has built a payment protocol on Polygon that enables real-time payroll in fiat and cryptocurrency with low gas fees, along with a Web3-focused human resources platform that can handle tax and misclassification risks. It collaborates with companies like Renfroe, which has over 20,000 employees, and Scrum Launch, which has team members in 72 countries. Niural raised $5 million in seed funding, with participation from Inspired Capital, New Form Capital, Alliance DAO, and others. It is currently seeking strategic investors.
