Blockchain
Sandeep Nailwal, co-founder of Polygon and Symbolic Capital, has launched a web3 startup accelerator.
Referred to as Beacon, the New York Metropolis-based accelerator stated it should assist early-stage crypto tasks via mentorship and financing. Fifteen startups have already obtained funding from Beacon, Nailwal advised The Block. He declined to share names of these startups, saying they are going to be introduced in January.
Beacon is a part of Nailwal’s Symbolic Capital, a crypto enterprise capital agency he launched in August with a $50 million fund. Nailwal runs Beacon with Kenzi Wang, co-founder of Symbolic Capital, Prateek Sharma, former vice chairman at Sequoia Capital, and Uri Stav, former chief safety officer at Digital Forex Group, amongst others.
Beacon affords a 12-week program to mentor and finance startup founders. This system’s first cohort, “Cohort 0,” acquired underway in October, with over 30 founders from 15 startups, throughout areas together with DeFi, infrastructure, and gaming. The following cohort is open for purposes till Jan. 31. SoftBank’s Neil Cunha-Gomes, Coinbase’s Dan Kim, Electrical Capital’s Maria Shen and Pantera Capital’s Paul Veradittakit are amongst Beacon’s different mentors.
“Our final objective is to construct the best community of web3 founders on this planet,” Nailwal stated. “Having gone via an accelerator earlier than (Binance Labs), I discovered that the best useful resource in any accelerator is the opposite founders going via this system alongside you. We expect that as our alumni community grows, the general high quality of tasks being in-built web3 will improve as founders assist one another discover success.”
Beacon is constructing a social community for founders and alumni to attach with one another throughout and after their time in applications. For traders, Beacon stated it has already constructed a customized platform for them to assessment tasks, watch video pitches, learn up on founder backgrounds and obtain direct introductions to founders.
Beacon is ready to host a reside demo day subsequent month, the place founders will be capable to pitch their tasks to over 300 traders. It goals to create the following 100 web3 unicorns.