【Sponsored by a16z Crypto】21 web3 startups to participate in the Crypto Startup Accelerator (CSX) Fall 2024 program.
AI and ZKP are the most common.
Good morning.
Mitsui from web3 researcher.
Today we will summarize the web3 startups participating in the recently announced CSX Fall 2024 Program.
🟡What is CSX?
✨CSX Fall 2024 Cohort 21 participating companies
💬AI and ZKPare many.
🟡What is CSX?
Before we get into specific startups, let us explain the Crypto Startup Accelerator (CSX) in the first place.
CSX is an accelerator program sponsored by a16z.The program helps accelerate the development and product-market adaptation of early-stage startup companies using blockchain technology.
Over the course of 8 weeks, the following steps will support the project through industry networking introductions, lectures, and mentoring.Each successful company will also receive a minimum of $500,000 invested by a16z CSX.
The program is held twice a year, once in the spring and once in the fall, and has graduated the following companies to date.
A total of 21 projects have been selected for the Fall 2024 Cohort, from 11 countries: Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Germany, Japan, Poland, Portugal, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and United States (including Puerto Rico).
✨CSX Fall 2024 Cohort 21 participating companies
Anera Labs : Building a liquidity infrastructure to integrate all on-chain liquidity.
Banyan : Leveraging AI to bridge communication gaps in the workplace and bring transparency to companies.
Blocksense : Enables the creation of oracles that can leverage Internet data and CPU/GPU calculations.
Cork Protocol : Risk pricing protocol to accelerate on-chain credits
Dot : Convert user-generated pixel art into game pieces for on-chain games.
Fermah : Build a universal zero knowledge proof generation layer
Future Primitive : Create a new home for your internet photo friends
Kuzco : Marketplace for LLM reasoning
MeshMap : Build a global 3D map and AR content network.
Opacity Labs : Verify Web2 data privately with zkTLS
OpenGradient : Building a blockchain that aims to on-chain the world's computing.
PIN AI : Building an open platform for personal AI (data + agents)
Pod : New L1 primitive that is blockless, leaderless and relaxes the notion of total ordering of transactions
Sekai : Easy to create, share and monetize interactive stories
Skyfire : Open payment protocol that allows AI agents to make any payment
Suave : Allows DApps to accept any token from any wallet on any blockchain
t1 : Real-time proof generation to integrate Ethereum.
TACEO : MPC cryptographic computing for Web3
Term Labs : DeFi lending platform matching borrowers and lenders with fixed interest rates
vlayer labs : Unreliable and verifiable data infrastructure utilizing zero knowledge proof
zkSpin : Building a highly parallel blockchain to run demanding DApps on-chain.
Since we are in the pre-seed to seed stage, many companies have not released their products or even documents, but we will pick out three of these projects that are relatively publicly available and of interest to us.
Blocksense.
A project to build a ZK rollup that extends Oracle data indefinitely.Existing Oracle protocols are expensive to use and are often operated in a centralized manner, but we are attempting to implement this in a decentralized and efficient manner.
SchellingCoin specifically implements the necessary trust-minimizing encryption and game-theoretic incentives called SchellingCoin, and all data will be verified by ZK circuits that implement the SchellingCoin principle.For a more information on SchellingCoin, please click here.
PIN AI
As AI becomes more prevalent, more and more useful applications are being developed, but no matter how advanced it becomes, a high-performance AI cannot be built without collecting data.PIN AI utilizes ZK technology to build an open platform that allows individuals to access that data while retaining their own information.
Developers can build services that use the data, and users pay a fee and receive incentives for providing the data.
Suave.
Wallet provider that seamlessly accepts any cryptocurrency on any chain and receives tokens of choice, allows NFTs to be purchased with any token and instantly cross-chained without tinkering with the DeFi protocol side, and can be embedded as WaaS.
💬AIとZKPが多い
Now, how was your impression of the 21 projects?There may be some parts that cannot be understood from just one sentence of explanation, but many of them are still impressions of AI and ZKP.
Then there are also cross-chain (chain abstraction) projects like SuaveI mentioned.And, although this is common in all funding, there are also many DeFi-based projects.I am very excited about DeFi projects that build new concepts and mechanisms.
a16z is not everything, but given its influence, it is certainly one of the trend-setting VCs in the world.
AI and ZKP are very much in this fall semester.If this is the seed phase, it looks like many projects will be TGE by 2025 or so and commercialized by 2026.
And I compile a weekly list of funded projects, and again, AI and ZKP are very common there.There have been many before, but I have the impression that there has been an especially large increase in the last few months.It definitely seems to be one of the narrative issues in the VC industry.
Generally speaking, an industry that attracts a lot of money will have its share of projects that fail, but it will also produce projects that will become the next generation of infrastructure, so I am looking forward to seeing how it progresses.
I was personally most interested in PIN AI.
It seems to me that this is a kind of optimal solution to the existing AI industry's sense of challenge and improvement of personal UX.Current generative AI like ChatGPT is great, but the future should be the era of AI agents that are personalized to the individual.
In that case, the more personalized the experience can be, the more personal information can be collected, but many people are not comfortable with that.Also, if data is collected for each service, that data will be siloed and a personalized experience across each service will not be possible.
This is where an open infrastructure like PIN AI can store personal data in a confidential manner on the blockchain, allowing developers to build applications.This is a good example of how ZKP can be used and demonstrates the efficacy of blockchain as an open database.
If this really happens, ordinary users are likely to register if they can monetize it, and more importantly, AI developers in Web2 are likely to start participating to build their apps.
Don't get me wrong, I don't know if PIN AI will win out, but I think that solutions using blockchain and ZKP are a good match regarding this sense of challenge, and we may see a future where blockchain is used as the foundation for AI agents, which is at the center of AI trends over the next 5 years(Sam Altman also has a blockchain solution.(Sam Altman also does blockchain, so you might be surprised to see such a project on Worldchain.)
These are the 21 web3 startups participating in the CSX Fall 2024 program!
🔗Reference URL:Announcing the CSX Fall 2024 Cohort
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mitsui
A web3 researcher. Operating the newsletter "web3 Research" delivered in five languages around the world.
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The author is a web3 researcher based in Japan. If you have a project that is interested in expanding to Japan, please contact the following:
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