A summary of the 18 project layouts by Polygon co-founder Sandeep: passionate about targeting seed rounds, with multiple projects for the Polygon ecosystem

Author: Nancy, PANews

Recently, the AI project Sentient, which has garnered massive funding solely based on its innovative vision for open AI without launching any substantial products, has sparked market controversy, making one of its builders, Sandeep Nailwal, a hot topic.

Sandeep is the co-founder and executive chairman of Polygon Labs, and at the end of May this year, he announced his additional role as Chief Business Officer, responsible for overseeing strategies related to solutions developed by Polygon. At the same time, he is also a very active angel investor.

According to data from the Web3 asset data platform RootData, Sandeep has invested in approximately 124 crypto projects to date. In terms of project types, infrastructure, DeFi, CeFi, L1, and AI sectors are more favored by Sandeep; regarding funding rounds, disclosed seed rounds and Series A rounds account for as much as 67.4%, with valuations typically ranging from several million to tens of millions of dollars; in terms of operational status, 91.9% of the projects have launched on the mainnet, while 7 projects have ceased operations.

This year, Sandeep has announced his involvement in the construction/investment of 18 crypto projects, primarily focusing on AI, ZK, DID, DEX, and infrastructure sectors, with AI projects accounting for over one-fifth. In terms of the number of investment institutions per project, the average number of participating investors is 18.9, with the highest reaching 38. Institutions such as Polychain Capital, HashKey Capital, Sreeram Kannan, Animoca Brands, and OKX Ventures have a higher likelihood of co-investing; regarding investment rounds, 9 of these projects are primarily in the seed round, with many projects already showing high valuations at the seed stage, the highest seed round financing amount reaching $85 million, and the disclosed highest valuation reaching $400 million. Additionally, many of these projects are either part of the Polygon ecosystem or have certain cooperative relationships.

AI

Sentient

The open-source AI platform Sentient aims to build open-source AI models through community contributions to address the current centralization and ethical issues in the AI field. Sentient plans to build on Polygon or create its own chain using the Polygon Chain Development Kit (CDK). One of Sentient's core contributors is Sandeep Nailwal, while Sreeram Kannan, founder and CEO of EigenLayer, has served as an advisor throughout.

In the recent $85 million seed round financing announced by Sentient, leading investors include Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, Pantera Capital, and Framework Ventures, along with 26 other institutional/individual investors such as Ethereal Ventures, Robot Ventures, Symbolic Capital, Delphi Ventures, Hack VC, Arrington Capital, HashKey Capital, Canonical Crypto, and Foresight Ventures.

It is worth mentioning that Sentient was founded by Kenzi Wang, co-founder of Symbolic Capital, who is also an advisor to Polygon Labs and a former vice president of Huobi Global. In May of this year, Kenzi Wang, along with Sandeep and other Polygon executives, was reported to have maliciously planned a MEME coin scam, but the latter did not respond.

Prodia

Prodia is a distributed GPU network for AI inference solutions, aiming to provide more efficient and cost-effective cloud computing services using Web3 infrastructure. Most core team members of Prodia come from the storage project Storj, including founder Monty Anderson, who was the R&D director at Storj Labs, CEO Shawn Wilkinson, who is the founder and CSO of Storj, and chief engineer Monty Anderson, who was a senior software engineer and R&D director at Storj.

In July of this year, Prodia announced the completion of a $15 million seed round financing with 13 investors, including leading investor Dragonfly Capital, as well as HashKey Capital, Web3.com, Index Ventures, Symbolic Capital, OKX Ventures, and angel investors Balaji Srinivasan, Polygon founder Sandeep Nailwal, and Bloq co-founder Matthew Roszak.

OpenLedger

OpenLedger focuses on building permissionless, data-driven infrastructure for artificial intelligence development. This month, OpenLedger announced it raised $8 million in seed round financing from 19 investors, including leading investors Polychain Capital and Borderless Capital, with participation from HashKey Capital, Finality Capital, Hash3, STIX, MH Ventures, EigenLayer founder Sreeram Kannan, Sandeep Nailwal, and Manta Network co-founder Kenny Li.

Sahara

Sahara is a trustless, permissionless, and privacy-centric decentralized artificial intelligence network that can create customized autonomous knowledge agents (Sahara KAs) for individuals and businesses. In March of this year, Sahara announced the completion of a $6 million seed round financing, including leading investor Polychain Capital and 14 other investors, including Samsung Next, Matrix Partners, Motherson Group, dao5, Geekcartel, and Sandeep Nailwal.

ZK

Lumoz

Lumoz (formerly Opside) is a decentralized ZK-RaaS platform aimed at improving the efficiency of zero-knowledge computation, providing users with a global, open, and fair computing platform, and is an officially certified CDK technology provider for Polygon.

In April of this year, Lumoz announced the completion of a $6 million token financing at a valuation of $120 million, with participation from 7 institutional/individual investors including OKX Ventures, HashKey Capital, KuCoin Ventures, Comma3 Ventures, Kronos Ventures, Kernel Ventures, and Sandeep Nailwal.

Succinct Labs

Succinct Labs is a zero-knowledge proof infrastructure service provider dedicated to lowering the barriers to the use of zero-knowledge proof technology, helping all developers access the technology to accelerate its adoption. Succinct Labs announced the completion of a $55 million seed and Series A financing round with 16 investors in March, including leading investor Paradigm, as well as Robot Ventures, Bankless Ventures, Geometry, ZK Validator, Sandeep Nailwal, and Sreeram Kannan.

DID

Privado ID

Privado ID (Polygon ID) is a digital identity solution spun off from Polygon Labs, aimed at giving individuals control over their own data. The team members of Privado ID include co-founders David Schwartz and Antoni Martin, serving as CEO and COO respectively, with Jordi Baylina as a key figure in the development of Polygon zkEVM serving as a technical advisor, and Sandeep Nailwal as a growth advisor.

Humanity Protocol

Humanity Protocol is a DID protocol based on Polygon CDK, dedicated to ensuring user privacy and security through fingerprint recognition technology and zero-knowledge proofs, aiming to provide an easy-to-access and non-intrusive method for establishing human proof in Web3 applications. At the end of February, Humanity Protocol announced it received strategic investments from 23 investors, including Hashed, CMCC, Cypher Capital, Foresight Ventures, Animoca Brands founder Yat Siu, and Sandeep Nailwal.

DEX

Ooga Booga

Ooga Booga is a liquidity aggregator in the Berachain ecosystem, aimed at supporting Berachain's goal of becoming the most capital-efficient blockchain. Ooga Booga raised $1 million in seed round financing at a valuation of $10 million from 28 investors, including Cypher Capital, CitizenX, Rubik, Rana, and Sandeep Nailwal.

Dolomite

Dolomite is a decentralized trading protocol within the Arbitrum ecosystem, which secured $900,000 in strategic financing from 14 investors, including Sandeep Nailwal, Polygon Labs CEO Marc Boiron, and DCF GOD.

Others

Mystiko Network

Mystiko Network is a Web3 infrastructure layer, with Mystiko SDK being a universal ZK SDK that provides scalability, interoperability, privacy, and artificial intelligence for each blockchain/DApp.

At the end of March, Mystiko.Network announced it raised $18 million in seed round financing at a valuation of $400 million from 11 investors, led by Sequoia Capital India/SEA (Peak XV Partners), with participation from Samsung Next, Hashkey Capital, Mirana, Signum, Coinlist, and Sandeep Nailwal.

GAM3S.GG

GAM3S.GG is a Web3 gaming information platform aimed at bringing gamers into Web3 through game discovery, content, live streaming, community events, and more. In the strategic round financing announced in March of this year, GAM3S.GG secured $2 million in strategic financing from 31 investors, including Sandeep Nailwal, YGG co-founder Gabby Dizon, and Sky Mavis & Ronin co-founder Jiho Zirlin.

Solayer

Solayer is a re-staking protocol in the Solana ecosystem, aimed at utilizing economic security and quality execution as decentralized cloud infrastructure to achieve a higher degree of consensus and block space customization for application developers. This month, Solayer announced the completion of Builders Round financing, with participation from 20 investors including Solana Labs co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko, Marinade core contributor Michael Repetny, Solend founder Rooter, Tensor co-founder Richard Wu, and Sandeep Nailwal. Although Solayer did not disclose the specific amount of this round of financing, it previously stated that it hoped to raise $8 million at a valuation of $80 million in a seed round led by Hack VC.

Gamic

Gamic is a Web3 community application aimed at providing a new interactive platform for the Web3 space. Supported by Binance Labs incubation and Fundamental Labs development, Gamic announced in May that it successfully raised $1.8 million through multiple rounds of financing, including participation from 9 investors such as Polygon Ventures, Gate.io, Mapleblock, Mulana, Double Peak Group, and Sandeep Nailwal.

Ava Protocol

Ava Protocol is an intent-based Eigenlayer AVS that seamlessly supports a variety of use cases including DeFi, NFTs, and gaming for privacy-preserving autonomous transactions. In June, Ava Protocol announced the completion of $5.5 million in initial investment and an additional $4.5 million in seed round financing, with participation from 13 investors including Electric Capital, Taisu Ventures, and Sandeep Nailwal.

Lava Foundation

Lava Foundation is a newly established non-profit organization dedicated to developing the modular blockchain network Lava, which focuses on providing data access services through remote procedure calls (RPC). In early May, Lava Foundation announced it successfully raised $11 million in token funding, with participation from 7 investors including Animoca Brands, Gate.io Ventures, CoinGecko Ventures, and Sandeep Nailwal.

Layer3

Layer3 is a token distribution protocol that enables more effective token allocation by unifying user activities across multiple blockchains and applications. Currently, the project is developing a new AI protocol to optimize token distribution strategies, which is expected to launch later this year.

Layer3 has completed multiple rounds of financing, including a $15 million Series A financing announced in June from 38 investors, co-led by ParaFi and Greenfield Capital, as well as participation from Sandeep Nailwal, Electric, and others in 2022.

Beacon

Beacon is a Web3 startup accelerator founded by Sandeep Nailwal, which announced in February this year that it raised over $150 million in the past year.