Inventory of the 21 projects selected for the a16z CSX accelerator

Author: Azuma, Odaily Planet Daily

In the early hours of today Beijing time, a16z Crypto partner Jason Rosenthal announced on X the 21 projects selected for the a16z Crypto Startup Accelerator (CSX) Fall program.

According to the official description from a16z Crypto, the projects selected for this accelerator program come from 11 different countries, including Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Germany, Japan, Poland, Portugal, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States (including Puerto Rico). The project categories cover various stacks of the cryptocurrency ecosystem, including AI, DeFi, infrastructure, as well as photo sharing and mapping, which are more consumer-oriented applications.

Over the next 8 weeks, this batch of projects will receive guidance from top investors and founders within the CSX accelerator and will have the opportunity to connect with a16z's vast ecological network. More importantly, a16z will also invest at least $500,000 in each selected project through CSX.

Below is a brief introduction to this batch of 21 projects (sorted by the first letter of the project name).

Anera Labs

Project or founder social media: https://x.com/intheanera

Positioning: DeFi

CSX one-sentence introduction: Building liquidity infrastructure for unified cross-chain liquidity.

Has it raised funds: No

Banyan

Project or founder social media: Not yet determined

Positioning: AI

CSX one-sentence introduction: Bridging communication gaps in the workplace using artificial intelligence to improve operational efficiency.

Has it raised funds: No

Blocksense

Project or founder social media: https://x.com/blocksense_

Positioning: Oracle

CSX one-sentence introduction: Enabling the creation of oracles that can utilize internet data and CPU/GPU computation.

Has it raised funds: Yes

Blocksense today announced the completion of a $4 million seed round, led by Permutation, with participation from a16z's Crypto Startup Accelerator (CSX), Scott Moore, Public Works, Tykhe Block Ventures, Selini Capital, and MH Ventures.

It is understood that Blocksense is a ZK Rollup-based oracle solution that reduces high costs through tightly packed data blocks, introduces a transparent fee model, and provides fully decentralized, permissionless data feeds, aiming to revolutionize the oracle network. Anyone can become a data provider on the network by staking BlockSense tokens, and nodes will automatically execute all reporting tasks by obtaining the appropriate oracle scripts and broadcasting their results to the BlockSense network.

Cork Protocol

Project or founder social media: https://x.com/Corkprotocol

Positioning: DeFi

CSX one-sentence introduction: A risk pricing protocol aimed at accelerating the development of on-chain credit.

Has it raised funds: Yes

Cork Protocol today announced the completion of a seed round, with investors including Orange DAO, Founderheads, IDEO CoLab Ventures, Outliers Fund, Unbounded Capital, Steakhouse Financial, and over 20 angel investors, with the investment amount undisclosed. Cork aims to expand and accelerate the development of on-chain credit by helping market participants price and hedge risks.

DOT

Project or founder social media: https://x.com/dotdotfan

Positioning: Gaming

CSX one-sentence introduction: Transforming user-created pixel art into on-chain game components.

Has it raised funds: No

Fermah

Project or founder social media: https://x.com/fermah_xyz

Positioning: ZK Infrastructure

CSX one-sentence introduction: Building a universal zero-knowledge proof generation layer.

Has it raised funds: No

Future Primitive

Project or founder social media: https://x.com/futureprimitive

Positioning: Consumer Application

CSX one-sentence introduction: A photo-based internet social platform.

Has it raised funds: No

Kuzco

Project or founder social media: https://x.com/kuzco_xyz

Positioning: AI

CSX one-sentence introduction: LLM inference marketplace.

Has it raised funds: Yes

Kuzco's official website has not disclosed any funding information, but Frictionless Capital mentioned investing in Kuzco when announcing its new fund. According to social media information traced back from the VC's official website, it can be verified that the Kuzco invested in is the same project selected for CSX this time.

According to public information, Kuzco is a distributed GPU cluster built on the Solana blockchain, aimed at facilitating efficient and economical inference for large language models (LLMs) such as Llama 3, Mistral, and Phi 3.

MeshMap

Project or founder social media: https://x.com/meshmapxyz

Positioning: Consumer Application

CSX one-sentence introduction: Building a 3D world map and AR content network.

Has it raised funds: No

Opacity Labs

Project or founder social media: https://x.com/OpacityNetwork

Positioning: Privacy

CSX one-sentence introduction: Achieving privacy verification of Web2 data using zkTLS.

Has it raised funds: No

Historically, Opacity Labs has been integrated into EigenLayer, becoming one of the mainnet AVS services, allowing users to generate proofs of their data on existing Web2 platforms, thereby advancing user data sovereignty.

OpenGradient

Project or founder social media: https://x.com/OpenGradient

Positioning: AI

CSX one-sentence introduction: Building a blockchain that brings computing power on-chain.

Has it raised funds: No

According to the description on OpenGradient's official website, the project positions itself as "a native intelligent network supporting sovereign AI."

PIN AI

Project or founder social media: https://x.com/PINAI_IO

Positioning: AI

CSX one-sentence introduction: Building an open platform for personal AI (data + agents).

Has it raised funds: Yes

PIN AI today completed a $10 million seed round, led by a16z Crypto. PIN AI is an AI infrastructure company developing the world's first open-source personal intelligent network (PIN), aimed at transforming smartphones into privacy-focused AI personal assistants, allowing users to fully control and own their personal AI.

Pod Network

Project or founder social media: https://x.com/poddotnetwork

Positioning: Layer 1

CSX one-sentence introduction: A new L1 primitive with no blocks, no leader nodes, and an expanded concept of transaction total ordering.

Has it raised funds: No

Sekai

Project or founder social media: https://x.com/joinsekai

Positioning: Content, IP

CSX one-sentence introduction: Simplifying the creation, sharing, and monetization of interactive stories.

Has it raised funds: No

After a simple trial, Sekai is somewhat like a picture version of Story (the two have collaborated), allowing multiple users to collaboratively create a graphic story.

Skyfire

Project or founder social media: https://x.com/trySkyfire

Positioning: AI

CSX one-sentence introduction: An open payment protocol enabling AI agents to pay any fees.

Has it raised funds: Yes

In August of this year, Skyfire, founded by former Ripple executives, announced the completion of an $8.5 million seed round, aimed at providing crypto payment solutions for AI agents. Investors in this round include USDC issuer Circle, Ripple, Gemini, and Silicon Valley billionaire and Bitcoin advocate Tim Draper's venture capital firm.

Skyfire has developed an open-source payment system that allows autonomous AI agents to conduct various transactions on the internet, including purchasing data storage, creative assets, airline tickets, and everyday goods. Its payment network operates on the USDC stablecoin and is currently deployed on the Polygon network, with plans to expand to other blockchains in the future.

Suave

Project or founder social media: https://x.com/suavemoney

Positioning: DeFi

CSX one-sentence introduction: Enabling DApps to accept any tokens from any wallet on any blockchain.

Has it raised funds: No

t 1 protocol

Project or founder social media: https://x.com/t1protocol

Positioning: Ethereum Scaling

CSX one-sentence introduction: Real-time proof generation to ensure Ethereum's state consistency.

Has it raised funds: Yes

The Ethereum scaling solution t 1 protocol today announced the completion of a $2.5 million Pre-seed round, with participation from a16z Crypto Startup School (CSX), Espresso, Frax, CowSwap, ETHGlobal, ENSO, INJECTIVE, and angel investors such as Guy Wuollet, AliYahya, and Eric Chen. It is reported that the t 1 protocol aims to provide scaling solutions for Ethereum, supporting real-time proof generation to ensure the consistency of Ethereum's state.

TACEO

Project or founder social media: https://x.com/TACEO_IO

Positioning: ZK Infrastructure

CSX one-sentence introduction: Providing MPC encrypted computing for Web3.

Has it raised funds: No

Previously, TACEO was selected as one of the first 17 award-winning projects in the Worldcoin community grant program. Earlier, the Nil Foundation collaborated with TACEO to use ZK technology to verify machine learning (ML) models on the Ethereum mainnet, enabling machine learning to operate within smart contracts without third-party trust.

Term Labs

Project or founder social media: https://x.com/term_labs

Positioning: DeFi

CSX one-sentence introduction: A DeFi lending platform that matches borrowers and lenders at fixed rates.

Has it raised funds: Yes

In February 2023, Term Labs announced the completion of a new round of funding of $2.5 million, led by Electric Capital, with participation from Circle Ventures, MEXC Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, etc. The new funds will be used to build fixed-rate products for DeFi.

In May 2024, Term Labs announced the completion of a strategic round of funding of $5.5 million under the protocol name Term Finance, led by Electric Capital, with participation from Arete Capital, Delta Blockchain Fund, Inception Capital, Blizzard Fund, Maelstrom, etc. The new funds will be used to develop the protocol and accelerate Term's roadmap to simplify lending through features like looping, passive lending, automation, and real-time alerts.

vlayer labs

Project or founder social media: https://x.com/vlayer_xyz

Positioning: ZK Infrastructure

CSX one-sentence introduction: A trustless verifiable data infrastructure powered by zero-knowledge proofs.

Has it raised funds: No

zkSpin

Project or founder social media: https://x.com/zkspin

Positioning: Gaming Chain

CSX one-sentence introduction: Building a highly parallel blockchain to run demanding DApps on-chain.

Has it raised funds: No

According to zkSpin core contributor justinzhang.eth, the project will primarily focus on gaming scenarios with high-performance requirements. zkSpin allows each application session to have its own temporary zkRollup. This zkRollup operates on the player's own device, allowing for optimal performance, and incurs no gas fees during gameplay, as it does not occupy any public block space, while being secured under zk proof guarantees.