With renewed interest in cryptocurrency ventures, some Web3 startups are hoping to gain an edge through accelerator programs.
Startup accelerators provide mentorship and guidance to founders in exchange for early equity in the company. Perhaps the most famous example is San Francisco-based Y Combinator, which counts a number of cryptocurrency companies including Coinbase and OpenSea among its alumni.
read more: Funding wrap: Y Combinator wants more stablecoin startups
Blue-chip tech VC fund a16z this week announced the cohort selected for its spring 2024 crypto startup accelerator. The group of 25 startups will spend his 10 weeks in London and be mentored by the A16Z crypto team.In the list are Posted Projects by a16z Operating Partner Jason Rosenthal were for Farcaster infrastructure, decentralized food delivery, and zero-knowledge passport authentication.
Each startup in the a16z cryptocurrency accelerator will receive a $500,000 investment from a16z in exchange for a 7% stake. Graduates of the program include his research and development organization Flashbots and wallet platform Phantom.
read more: A16z injects $100 million into EigenLayer
Also this week, the foundation behind the layer-1 blockchain Avalanche announced the first cohort of its own accelerator called Codebase. This accelerator is only for startups building on top of Avalanche, and his AVAX-focused decentralized VC named Colony Lab says he will raise between $500,000 and $1 million per startup. I plan to invest.
Web3 gaming infrastructure company Helika announced that it will invest up to $50 million in a newly launched gaming accelerator startup in partnership with Pantera, Spartan Capital, Sfermion and other VC firms.
All this comes as venture capital is showing renewed vigor in the cryptocurrency space. Crypto-native company 1kx announced Thursday that it has raised $75 million in oversubscribed funding. Hack VC closed a $150 million round late last month.
Sam Lehman, principal at Symbolic Capital, said powerful crypto accelerators can build communities for founders in the network-centric Web3 space.
Lehman added that the proliferation of new crypto accelerators may also be driven in part by funds looking to grow their brands or quickly deploy capital to startups. And some accelerators can be predatory.
“Some accelerators take advantage of the early stages of investment and the proposed ‘value-add’ to enter a company and quickly gain a very large position. “Founders should think carefully about whether the terms they accept from accelerators are worth the return,” Lehman said in a text.
Web3 games remain popular
Investment rounds in Web3 Games have quietly increased in size and number in recent months. The latest example is Parallel Studios, which just announced a $35 million round with investment from VanEck, Solana Ventures, The Spartan Group, and more.
read more: Immutable and Polygon Labs launch Inevitable Games Fund, aiming to raise $100 million
Parallel Studios has developed the popular NFT-enabled card game Parallel, which just recently released its beta version to the public. He is also building his AI-enabled strategy game called Colony.
Gunzilla Games, MyPrize, Elixir Games, and irbium These are all gaming projects that raised more than $10 million this week.
Other notable fundraisers
- MyShell, an AI agent creation platform, has raised $11 million in pre-Series A funding led by Dragonfly.
- Blockchain Project Peek Focused on DePIN Painted $15 million in a round led by Borderless Capital and Generative Ventures.
- Data availability startup 0G Labs has raised $35 million.
- Polychain led a $15.3 million investment in intent-centric execution network dappOS in a round that valued the startup at $300 million.
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