A review of the 26 projects selected for the a16z Crypto Accelerator Program: why they stood out from over 8,000 projects

Author: angelilu, Foresight News

a16z Crypto has relaunched the Crypto Startup School (CSS) after three years and expanded it into a comprehensive accelerator program aimed at nurturing and supporting the next generation of Web3 projects. This is highly attractive for startups, as they can receive funding support and guidance from top crypto venture capitalists.

The CSS, which was first launched in February 2020, has produced excellent Web3 crypto applications such as Phantom, Flashbots, and Goldfinch. Following the opening of applications this time, over 8,000 teams from 15 countries and regions applied, with a wide range of products covering infrastructure, creator tools, and Web3 games.

a16z Crypto selected 26 teams to participate in this year's Crypto Startup School, which started on March 7 and lasts for three months, culminating in a Demo Day on May 25, where participating projects can receive $500,000 in seed funding. With the support and acceleration from CSS, these projects are expected to continue developing and advancing innovations in Web3 technology. Let's explore the gems; below is an introduction to the 26 participating projects.

Blockus

Blockus is a service that packages and provides account management and NFT sales pages, aiming to offer game studios seamless integration of account and wallet management, NFT marketplace and staking, fiat and crypto payment functionalities, allowing developers to focus on innovating gameplay.

Discove

Discove is a decentralized SNS platform designed to provide users with simple tools to create personal feeds. By integrating with the decentralized social network Farcaster, Discove allows users to easily create and share content sources they care about, building personal interest communities.

Fuul

Fuul is a marketing engine focused on Web3 services, aimed at helping projects find and manage growth partnerships. By utilizing Fuul's smart contracts for trustless and transparent advanced conversion tracking and automated payments, developers can better measure the effectiveness of campaigns and optimize growth strategies.

ZeroDev

ZeroDev is an embeddable and programmable smart wallet that supports "account abstraction," compatible with the ERC-4337 AA wallet core, API, SDK, etc., and includes features such as sponsoring gas for users, batch transactions, and automated trading.

Primev

Primev is a decentralized data protocol aimed at providing on-chain data for MEV participants. Through Primev, users can access and share information about MEV, facilitating the development of the entire MEV ecosystem.

ChainPatrol

ChainPatrol is a Web3 real-time security platform that provides services for collecting information on fake websites and suspicious addresses, gathering data from channels like Twitter, Discord, Telegram, Google Ads, and alerting users to phishing risks through reports.

Plurigrid

Plurigrid is dedicated to building a decentralized energy system and optimizing governance through digital technology based on sustainability, inclusivity, and value creation for all stakeholders. It aims to transform the energy sector and contribute to building a more resilient and sustainable world.

Web3Analytic

Web3Analytic is a tool focused on DeFi product analysis, helping Web3 product and marketing teams convert, attract, and retain more users through no-code user analysis, along with competitive analysis features.

Shield

Shield is a security enhancement tool for Web3 platforms and communities, helping organizations implement comprehensive security measures to prevent crypto vulnerabilities. Shield's threat detection software can be directly integrated into any platform via API or as a security bot in Discord for online communities. Shield announced the completion of a $2.1 million funding round in April this year.

Mentaport

Mentaport is a Web3 geolocation platform that can create smart contracts that perceive physical locations and update over time.

Frens

Frens is a messaging application for Web3 browsers, designed to provide a better social experience and communication platform.

Bello

Bello is an analysis tool for NFT project holders, helping users understand the relationships between NFT projects and holders, providing relevant analysis and insights, currently in private testing.

Narval

Narval is a customized wallet platform for organizations such as DAOs, Web3 guilds, and NFT funds, controlling, protecting, managing, and utilizing users' NFTs and digital assets through Web3-native strategies.

Eth.id

Eth.id is a personal Web3 profile website that helps users showcase a collection of personal relevant links and NFTs on Web2 websites by linking "me.eth.id" with their Ethereum address.

formless

formless is a creative technology lab focused on developing decentralized media applications. Share Protocol is a digital content distribution engine that uses peer-to-peer, pay-per-access microtransactions for decentralized distribution on the blockchain.

Capsule

Capsule is a wallet toolkit that implements programmable MPC, aimed at helping developers create wallets with interoperable transactions, seamlessly connecting users with Web3 services for transactions and signatures. Capsule was founded last year by Nitya Subramanian, former product lead of Layer 1 blockchain Celo, and completed a funding round in March this year, with the amount undisclosed.

IYK

IYK is a project aimed at creating connections between the physical and digital worlds. By linking shirts with built-in NFC chips to NFTs, users can interact with and experience digital assets.

FINE

FINE is a Web3 studio focused on generative art and interoperable assets, bringing unique artistic experiences and interactivity to users.

Pimlico

Pimlico is a crypto infrastructure for account abstraction, providing plug-and-play APIs for wallets to sponsor users' transactions, increasing user numbers for DApps initiating transactions.

'mbd the world

'mbd the world aims to build a better AI recommendation system accessible to anyone, supporting users in creating Web3 search and social subscription feeds. The AI behind 'mbd has been trained on data from open Web3 protocols such as Lens, Farcaster, and Mirror.

Sky Lab

Sky Lab aims to provide tools for building self-governing on-chain games, designing constraint mechanisms, and setting value distribution functions to reward developers for creating valuable games and incentivizing player progress.

Stackr Labs

Stackr Labs is building a unique modular Rollup SDK that enables developers to build micro Rollups using general-purpose programming languages. Aimed at simplifying Rollup development, which runs state machines off-chain and publishes computational data back to L1, developers only need to focus on how to build the state machine, while other Rollup infrastructure aspects will be handled by the SDK.

KIKI World

KIKI World is building a future beauty platform owned by customers, offering physical beauty products and on-chain products, allowing users to vote on newly released physical beauty products, including virtual membership passes.

Lockbox

Lockbox is a smart contract-based self-custody solution for permissioned and scalable crypto asset management.

Hourglass

Hourglass is a Web3-native browser that integrates wallets, personalized feeds, and large language models (LLM), aiming to simplify the currently fragmented Web3 experience.

Gandalf

Gandalf supports creators in setting up token-gated content, allowing only those with access conditions to view the creator's content, supporting content from platforms like Typeform, Notion, and Substack.