A summary of the first 13 graduate projects of the Web3 accelerator Beacon

Original Title: 《Web3-focused Beacon launches flagship demo day with 13 crypto startups》
Author: Jacquelyn Melinek, TechCrunch
Translation: Karen, Foresight News

In December 2022, Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal announced the launch of the Web3 startup accelerator Beacon, which will fund early crypto projects through mentorship and financial support.

The mentors for the accelerator program include Magic Eden CEO and co-founder Jack Lu, Halborn co-founder Rob Behnke, Polygon Zero co-lead Brendan Farmer, Coinbase Vice President of Business Development and Listings Dan Kim, and Decentral Games CEO and co-founder Miles Anthony, among others.

The first batch of “Cohort 0” projects was demonstrated this Tuesday. Sandeep Nailwal told TechCrunch that the Beacon team spoke with over 1,000 projects in Cohort 0, ultimately selecting 15 startups to participate, of which 13 successfully "graduated." For the "Cohort 1" batch, Beacon will invest $250,000 in each project, with a post-investment valuation of around $8 million per project. However, the "Cohort 0" batch will be assessed on a case-by-case basis as a pilot run.

The funding program of the Beacon accelerator does not impose restrictions on specific blockchains; most teams in "Cohort 0" are building cross-chain applications, although there are slightly more teams building on Ethereum. Kenzi Wang, a core contributor to Beacon and co-founder of Symbolic Capital, stated on demo day that among these 13 companies, there are 29 founders from 9 countries and 13 cities.

The startups in this batch focus on a range of crypto sub-industries, such as gaming, infrastructure, decentralized lending, and development tools, with almost all startups at the seed stage, except for Community Gaming, which is at the Series A funding stage.

Here are the details of the 13 startups in Cohort 0:

Arcana: Web3 Toolkit for Developers

Founders: Mayur Relekar, Aravindh Kumar

Stage: Seed stage.

According to the official website, Arcana's 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 such as former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan, Polygon co-founder JD Kanani, and Sandeep Nailwal.

Introduction: Arcana aims to help developers supplement their tech stack with tools to build secure decentralized applications, enabling developers to easily ensure the security and privacy of user data. Arcana's core tools include user authentication and tools for storing data and access control on its decentralized network. Arcana has currently launched a beta testnet.

Blinkmoon: Game Development Studio

Founders: Hugh Behroozy, Hajeir Mazinani

Stage: Seed stage.

According to PitchBook, Blinkmoon’s investors also include Binance Labs, NFX, Tess Ventures, etc. The Web3 venture capital fund Symbolic Capital, supported by Sandeep Nailwal, has also invested in this project.

Introduction: Blinkmoon is establishing an independent game development studio focused on the Web3 space. Previously, team members participated in creating visual effects for "Guardians of the Galaxy" and "Game of Thrones," and were involved in the production of game series such as "League of Legends: Wild Rift," "NBA," "Dead Rising," and "Rainbow Six."

ChapterX: Immersive 3D Platform

Founder: Chase Guo

Stage: Seed stage.

According to the official website, ChapterX's investors include Binance Labs, Spartan Group, Hyperedge Capital, Big Brain Holdings, GBV Capital, etc.

Introduction: ChapterX is an immersive 3D platform for users to build fully customizable worlds and avatars while experiencing a complete Web3 virtual life.

Colexion: GameFi Ecosystem

Founder: Abhay Aggarwal

Stage: Seed stage.

Colexion's investors include Polygon, Brevan Howard, Jump Capital, Symbolic Capital, Firestarter, and GSR, among others.

Introduction: Colexion is a card-based GameFi ecosystem designed to bring Web 2 games into the Web3 ecosystem through fantasy game-centric content. Colexion's Colexion Core system provides services such as minting, marketplace, bridging, and wallets.

Community Gaming: Esports Platform

Founder: Chris Gonsalves

Stage: Series A funding stage.

In April 2022, Community Gaming completed a $16 million Series A funding round, led by SB Opportunity Fund under SoftBank Group, with participation from Animoca Brands, Binance Labs, BITKRAFT Ventures, Griffin Gaming Partners, CoinFund, Hashed, Multicoin Capital, Shima Capital, Polygon Studios, and ConsenSys Mesh, as well as angel investors like Axie Infinity co-founder Jeff Zirlin and Yield Guild Games co-founder Gabby Dizon.

Introduction: Community Gaming aims to become an integrated esports competition platform. The platform is supported by blockchain payment technology based on Ethereum and Solana, providing tools for players, organizers, and game developers to create, facilitate, and participate in esports tournaments. Additionally, users can earn from games by completing tasks within Community Gaming.

Cubist: Web3 Developer Tools and Infrastructure

Founders: Ann Stefan, Deian Stefan (Associate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at UC San Diego), Riad Wahby, Fraser Brown

Stage: Seed stage.

Introduction: Cubist is a provider of development tools and infrastructure, enabling developers to easily build, test, and deploy across multi-chain and cross-chain DApps. The Cubist team members have co-authored over 80 research papers on topics related to computer systems, programming languages, security, and cryptography.

FastLane: MEV Solutions on Polygon

Founders: Alex Watts, Jordan Hagan

Stage: Seed stage.

Introduction: The FastLane protocol focuses on creating revenue for validators, improving the efficiency of algorithmic traders, and alleviating the pressure on network participants when overwhelmed by redundant transactions, without the need to install or manage custom software on validation nodes.

Meta Apes: Web3 Game

Founders: Taylor Shim, Nicholas Carr

Stage: Seed stage.

Meta Apes was previously selected as the "Most Valuable Builder" (MVB) in the fifth batch of the BNB Chain Web3 accelerator program, receiving investment from Binance Labs.

Introduction: Meta Apes is a free win-to-earn mobile Web3 game built on the BNB Application Sidechain (BAS). Players can build their own cities and communities while competing and exploring to win the "race to space." The game aims to combine traditional game elements like massively multiplayer online (MMO) strategy with Web3 elements like in-game currency. Team members have previously worked at Ubisoft, Gameloft, Zynga, AppLovin, and Epic.

Mystic Moose: Web3 Game Development Studio

Founder: Mike Levine

Stage: Seed stage.

In December 2021, Mystic Moose completed a $5 million seed funding round, led by Animoca Brands, with participation from Courtside Ventures, Republic Crypto, Alameda, AU21, Sfermion, Polygon Studios, Collab+Currency, Sky Vision Capital, Spartan Capital, HyperEdge, Momentum6, and Fourth Revolution Capital.

Introduction: Mystic Moose is a Web3 platform, game studio, and publisher, with team members previously working at Activision, LucasArts, and Electronic Arts. Mike Levine's first game, Planet Mojo, is built on its scalable backend platform Sumatra, which is a browser-based interconnected game server. Its auto-battler game Mojo Melee is currently undergoing alpha game testing and is planned to launch on web and mobile in the first quarter of this year. The studio is supported by companies such as Animoca Brands, Republic Crypto, and Polygon Studios.

Nillion: Web3 Infrastructure

Founders: Alex Page, Andrew Yeoh, Andrew Masanto

Stage: Seed stage.

In December 2022, Nillion completed a $20 million funding round, led by Distributed Global, with participation from AU21, Big Brain Holdings, Chapter One, GSR Markets, HashKey, OP Crypto, and SALT Fund.

Introduction: Nillion is a Web3 infrastructure startup focused on ensuring the storage, computation, and fragmentation of data on the internet. Nillion's technology, Nil Message Compute (NMC), is built for decentralized secure storage and computation. Nillion's founders include former employees from Uber, Indiegogo, and Hedera Hashgraph, as well as executives from Coinbase and Nike.

Davos Protocol: Stable Asset Lending Protocol

Founders: Varun Satyam, Julian Hayward, Filipe Gonalves

Stage: Seed stage.

Davos Protocol's stable asset is DAVOS, which utilizes liquid staking and over-collateralization to address liquidity lock-up issues. Specifically, Davos Protocol accepts tokens from multiple PoS networks as collateral to borrow DAVOS stable assets, then runs various low-risk strategies to generate returns from the collateralized assets and redistribute them to DAVOS stakers and DEX liquidity providers. The Davos Protocol risk team manages the monetary policy of the protocol to balance optimal price stability with yield, with weekly votes determining the reward distribution between stakeholders and liquidity providers. Strategic partners for the project include Polygon and Ankr.

Timeswap: Decentralized Lending Protocol

Founders: Ameeth Devadas, Harshita Singh, Ricsson Ngo

Stage: Seed stage.

Timeswap announced the completion of its seed funding round in October 2021, but did not disclose the amount raised. Investors in this round included Multicoin Capital, Mechanism Capital, and Defiance Capital.

Introduction: Timeswap is a decentralized lending platform and an AMM protocol supported by Polygon. Key features of Timeswap include flexible interest rates and collateral factors, allowing users to flexibly determine their risk-return profile and enabling users to create any Ethereum-based ERC20 token pool by providing appropriate liquidity.

Further Reading: 《Five Minutes to Understand the AMM-Based Non-Custodial Lending Protocol Timeswap》

Ylide: Wallet Communication Protocol

Founders: Ignat Shapkin, Kirill Zubkov, Danila Simonov

Stage: Seed stage.

Introduction: Ylide is a decentralized protocol for wallet-to-wallet communication, allowing multi-chain messaging, data storage to smart contracts, and end-to-end encryption. Ylide also has its own email client, and developers can integrate communication features into their projects.