Recently, the famous venture capital firm a16z announced the teams of 25 finalist projects for its 2024 cryptocurrency startup accelerator. These projects cover categories such as infrastructure, consumer applications, DeFi, payments, gaming, development tools, and DePIN. The selected projects will receive 10 weeks of personal training and guidance from a16z. This article will take stock of the 25 projects.
It is worth noting that early-stage projects carry significant risks, and some project information is scarce. Even a powerhouse like a16z can make mistakes. Investors should exercise caution and not blindly trust venture capitalists.
AminoChain: Decentralized Biobank Marketplace
AminoChain is a biobank marketplace that connects biobanks and clinical sites with biopharmaceutical companies. Donors can use this platform to understand the destination of their biological samples, who they are helping, and how they are being used in scientific research. Currently, AminoChain is in the private testing phase.
According to the official website, apart from a16z, AminoChain is supported by Antler, Superscrypt, and Plug and Play Ventures. LinkedIn shows that AminoChain was founded in 2022, headquartered in New York, USA, and has 2-10 employees. One disclosed employee is a partner from Plug and Play Ventures.
Collar Networks: The Future of Investment Banking
Collar Networks is a non-liquidating lending protocol that helps borrowers connect with market makers through an on-chain quotation process, forming a “collaborative lending arrangement”. This arrangement allows borrowers to temporarily give up the upside risk beyond a certain threshold to protect against the downside risk below a certain floor price. Below this floor price, borrowers can withdraw their stablecoin loans at any time.
Currently, Collar Networks is still under development, but users can sign up for the pre-registration list. LinkedIn shows that Collar Networks was founded in 2023, headquartered in New York, USA, and the protocol’s lead engineer is Caleb Ditchfield, a former Fei protocol engineer.
Compass Labs: Building New Standard Interfaces for DeFi
Compass Labs aims to become the TensorFlow of the crypto field and has built a Python-based data source and simulation platform. The platform is currently in beta testing and can help clients manage DeFi risks, increase income, and reduce costs.
According to the official website, Compass Labs’ partners include Aave, Polygon, Perpetual Protocol, and Orca, among other protocols. LinkedIn shows that Compass Labs was founded in 2022, headquartered in London, UK, and has 2-10 employees. The co-founder and CTO, Lukas Scheucher, previously worked as a software engineer at Google from November 2019 to June 2021.
Hungry Cats Studio: Verifying Secure and Trusted AI Workflows
Hungry Cats Studio focuses on cryptography research and implementation and utilizes encryption technology to promote AI applications. Overall, there is limited information about the project. According to their Twitter account, the team consists of four employees. Their official website resembles a blog and features five papers, including “Proving Git Contributions with zk-SNARKS” and “Non-local Arithmetic in Recursive Proofs.”
Launcher: Crypto Product Search and Platform for Building Smart Contract Mini-apps
Launcher is a Web3 product launch platform similar to Product Hunt, built on Optimism. The product is relatively mature, and Launcher has previously applied for sponsorship from the Optimism community’s RetroPGF. Launcher is also a platform launched based on the social protocols Farcaster and Lens, where users can discover Superchain applications in the ecosystem through product pages, popular app rankings, search, and exploration.
LinkedIn shows that Launcher was founded in 2022, headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee, USA, and has 2-10 employees.
MagicBlock: On-chain Game Framework on Solana and SVM
MagicBlock is an open-source framework designed for building on-chain games on Solana/SVM, including developing fully on-chain games or inheriting games onto Solana. MagicBlock claims to have obtained the MIT license and is maintained by MagicBlock Labs.
According to the official website, MagicBlock’s partners include Unity, Backpack, Eclipse, Orca, and Metaplex. LinkedIn shows that MagicBlock Labs has 2-10 employees.
NEBRA Labs: A Research and Development Organization for Scaling and Proving on the Blockchain
NEBRA is a research and development organization dedicated to making a zero-knowledge future a reality, with the first step being to scale Ethereum’s proof settlement capability in a trustless and censorship-resistant manner. To achieve this goal, NEBRA is developing generalized proof aggregation technology to aggregate proofs generated by different circuits, proof systems, and parties. Next, NEBRA will use this technology to guide a decentralized proof network that can horizontally scale its proof capacity as the number of nodes increases.
LinkedIn shows that NEBRA Labs was founded in 2023 and has 2-10 employees.
Neynar: Developer Infrastructure for Farcaster
Neynar is a tool that makes it easier for users to build on Farcaster. Neynar has launched the beta version of Frame Studio, which allows users to build meme, gallery, and product settlement frames without code and through multiple steps. Neynar offers three pricing plans: $9, $49, and $249. Neynar has already developed a commercial model.
In November last year, Neynar raised $3.2 million in funding. LinkedIn shows that Neynar was founded in 2023, headquartered in New York, USA, and has 2-10 employees. One of them, Manan P., known as Neynar Builder, previously worked as a senior software engineering manager at Coinbase for four years.
NodeKit: Building a Shared Sorter to Help Decentralized Rollups and Improve Interoperability
NodeKit SEQ is a decentralized shared sorter built into a custom L1 blockchain. SEQ uses the Snowman++ consensus algorithm to achieve high performance while maintaining the reliability of the consensus algorithm. In addition, SEQ allows multiple rollup sorting blocks and enables atomic inclusion of atomic bundles in the same block. NodeKit SEQ will launch a testnet on Avalanche Fuji.
In December last year, NodeKit completed a $1.2 million financing led by Borderless Capital, with participation from Avalanche ecosystem fund Blizzard Fund, Polygon Ventures, and Wormhole ecosystem fund. LinkedIn shows that NodeKit is headquartered in Ames, Iowa, USA, and has 2-10 employees.
Nosh: Decentralized Food Delivery Protocol
Nosh is a self-owned delivery service platform in Colorado, USA, founded in 2018 by local restaurant owners. While food delivery companies in the United States charge commissions of 30%-40%, Nosh aims to address the imbalance between restaurants and delivery providers. Nosh’s delivery service belongs to the community and takes into account the best interests of restaurants, drivers, and customers. Furthermore, Nosh’s operations reflect decentralization, with a board of local restaurant owners holding monthly meetings to oversee service quality and regularly visit restaurants and interview drivers. However, it is currently unclear how Nosh integrates crypto or blockchain technology into food delivery.
OpenLayer: Extending Web3 with Optimistic Verifiable Computation
OpenLayer adopts optimism and uses collateralized assets to provide cost-effective economic security, saving higher computational cycles, and leveraging multi-party computation and zero-knowledge proofs to trace computational results. Each user and device can contribute computing power and participate in the network, and Optimistic execution reduces hardware requirements. In addition, OpenLayer has launched the OpenOracle oracle, allowing any user to become an oracle node operator.
The official website shows that OpenLayer is supported by Geometry and LoogHash Ventures and has received grants from the Ethereum Foundation, Optimism, and Arbitrum Grants. LinkedIn shows that OpenOracle was founded in 2023, headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, USA, and has 2-10 employees.
OpenTrade: Institutional Lending and Yield Products for the New Digital Economy
OpenTrade is a compliant platform that provides institutional-grade loans and yield products designed for fintech companies and institutional investors in the Web2 and Web3 ecosystems. Specific use cases include enabling exchanges, fintech companies, wallets, and custodians to offer users institutionally backed yield products supported by RWA; allowing investors to build diversified tokenized fixed income product portfolios for themselves and their clients.
In May last year, OpenTrade completed a financing round of over $1.5 million led by Shino Global Capital, with participation from Circle Ventures and Polygon Ventures, among others. Additionally, OpenTrade v3 completed a code audit by OtterSec in 2023. LinkedIn shows that OpenTrade was founded in 2023, headquartered in London, UK, and has 2-10 employees.Playmint: Creating a Decentralized World for Builders to Create On-Chain Gaming Experiences
Playmint is dedicated to building a full-chain gaming platform and is currently developing the game Downstream. Based in Brighton, UK, the team consists of 14 members. According to LinkedIn, the three founders of Playmint have impressive backgrounds in the gaming industry. CEO David Amor served as the General Manager of MAG Interactive, a publicly listed gaming company on NASDAQ, for 5 years. CTO Iain Gilfeather was the Lead Programmer at TT Games, a subsidiary of Warner Bros Games. COO Luke Gibson held positions in operations and strategy at multiple gaming companies, including Epic Games, Tonic Games Group (later acquired by Epic), and Mediatonic Games.
Playmint has completed an angel round of equity financing, with investors including 1kx, IOSG, Cherry Ventures, and Play Ventures.
Roux: A Culinary Platform for the Digital Age
Limited information is available, and it is unclear how cooking is integrated with crypto or blockchain technology. According to the official website, “Roux is creating a blockchain for food to expand the boundaries of the culinary world.” Roux was founded in 2024 and is based in New York, USA, with 2-10 employees.
Sablier: Infrastructure for Token Distribution in Web3
Sablier is a token distribution protocol developed using Ethereum smart contracts, aiming to facilitate real-time payments for cryptocurrencies, particularly ERC-20 assets. By creating streams, Sablier can currently be used for token ownership, salaries, and airdrops.
Sablier completed a $4.5 million seed round of financing in March this year, with participation from Fenbushi Capital and WAGMI Ventures, among others. Sablier claims to have been operating on Ethereum since 2019, with global users creating over 65,000 streams on multiple chains. The stablecoin trading volume exceeds $50 million, and the total value locked (TVL) is over $160 million. Additionally, Sablier has undergone independent audits by Cantina, HYDN, and Omniscia.
Scrypted: Building the Intersection of AI, Gaming, and Decentralization
Scrypted’s vision is to build decentralized, self-owned, autonomous agents and games. They have developed the generative AI game development platform ArtemisML, the AI coordination layer Inori Network, the puzzle game Picturdle, and games integrated into ChatGPT. Additionally, Scrypted is building and soon to launch the Japanese role-playing game Niftiez. Scrypted’s partners include Kuma Games, the creators of Chibi Clash.
According to the official website, Scrypted’s CEO Tim Cotten has over 15 years of experience as the Chief Developer at EA, Mythic, Citadel, and Agilla. COO Andy Woodruff has over 20 years of game development experience at EA, Aeria Games, and Square Enix. Art Director Dave Brown is a veteran in game art, and they also have a medical doctor, Jae Lim, who specializes in neurosurgery and artificial intelligence. Scrypted is headquartered at the Virginia Serious Game Institute (VSGI) at George Mason University in the USA.
Spire: An zk Appchain Network with Atomic Composability
Spire enables developers to build the desired content in a modular way on existing infrastructure, with composability at L2 and L3. In the Spire architecture, the execution layer utilizes zkVM and the proof aggregation layer of RISC Zero + Spire. It uses a compressed sorter and ensures data availability and security through EspressoDA with re-collateralization. Settlement can be done through Ethereum L2 or L1. Furthermore, developers can use any language compiled to WASM, such as Rust and C++.
Limited information is available, but it is worth noting that Spire has also launched the Farcaster account.
Strobe: A DeFi Extension Network for New Permissionless and Transparent Markets
Strobe aims to build trust-minimized markets that empower previously impossible applications and markets, allowing users to build, exchange, and interact without permission or trust.
Limited information is available, and there have been no tweets from Strobe’s Twitter account. According to LinkedIn, Strobe has 11-50 employees, and the founders and CTO have connections to Instant Labs. Additionally, CEO Beau Hartshorne previously worked as a software engineer at Fanbook for nearly 5 years.
Taralli Labs: A Protocol for Efficient and Decentralized Zero-Knowledge Proof Supply Chains
Taralli Labs is building a decentralized protocol for zero-knowledge proof supply chains and is currently hiring protocol engineers, cryptographers, and operations managers. Taralli Labs’ co-founder, Jacquin Mininger, previously worked as a software engineer at Kadena from May 2021 to December 2022. Limited information is available about the rest of the team.
Tata Bazaar: A Social Commerce Platform Connecting the Physical and Digital Worlds of Fashion and Beauty
Limited information is available, and the official website is currently inaccessible (404 error). The founder of Tata Bazaar is Aleksija Vujicic, who graduated from New York University and the University of California, Los Angeles, and previously worked as an investment associate at Multicoin Capital.
TITLES: Creative Tools Supported by AI Models Trained by Artists
Users can use any AI model trained by artists for their creations on the TITLES website. Existing models include Own The Doge and Stability AI, among others. In 2023, TITLES also launched an AI-based NFT blending tool with attribution and payment systems.
According to LinkedIn, TITLES was founded in 2021 and is based in New York, USA, with 2-10 employees and support from 1 Confirmation and Betaworks Ventures, among others.
Tranched: Automating Private Securities Transactions Using Blockchain Technology
Tranched provides investment preference layers that offer the highest protection against credit losses, making it suitable for passive investors seeking risk-adjusted returns, such as pension funds and insurance companies. The intermediate layer offers double-digit yields and provides some protection against potential default loans, using professional funds. The senior fund is usually reserved by financial technology initiators but occasionally offers shares to investors who can tolerate the risk level.
According to LinkedIn, Tranched was founded in 2023 and is based in London, UK, with 2-10 employees. Co-founder Clément Larrue previously served as an investment manager at Secured Finance, a crypto bond protocol. Co-founder Michael Elalouf has years of experience as a Chief Financial Officer. CTO Antoine Girard worked in a technical role at ING for over 6 years, and Chief Developer Maximiliaan van Dijk previously worked at the crypto wallet XDEFI.
Tweed: Wallet and Payment Solutions Enabling Consumer Adoption of Blockchain Applications
Tweed aims to provide consumers with a user-friendly Web3 experience and offers products and services such as Wallet as a Service and NFT checkout. The Tweed wallet allows users to transition from fiat currency to NFTs and cryptocurrencies through various login options, account recovery features, and a white-label payment layer.
According to LinkedIn, Tweed was founded in 2022 and has 11-50 employees. They have received investments from Communitas Capital, among others.
Valyu Network: Providing Trusted Data for AI Models and Applications
Valyu was founded by Ph.D. researchers and scholars from the Department of Computer Science at University College London. The team has co-founded enterprise data/ML companies and collaborated with startups, enterprises, and governments to develop privacy-preserving data infrastructure. Valyu aims to enable responsible data usage and data monetization through the development of machine learning, cryptography, and smart contracts.
According to LinkedIn, Valyu was founded in 2022 and has 2-10 employees.
zkPassport: Identity Verification for Government-Issued Passports with Selective Data Disclosure
zkPassport enables users to scan the NFC chip on government-issued passports and prove the correctness of the signature in zk-SNARK. This makes the passport proof a unique identity source for anti-counterfeiting purposes and allows selective disclosure of private data in terms of identity and privacy. For example, users can disclose their nationality or birthdate without revealing any other private information. Additionally, users can prove that they indeed hold a valid passport, which can be verified on the chain to mint Soul Tokens (SBT). The team is currently attempting to re-implement the passport NFC specification in JavaScript.
Tags:
a16z
DeFi
DePIN
Solana
Wu Shuo Blockchain Real
Source link:
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/m30frO3uA2iiAXG5WrrN4g
Note: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not constitute investment advice.
Original article link: https://www.bitpush.news/articles/6553976
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