Beacon, the web3 startup accelerator launched by Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal, has expanded with ten new startups in its third cohort.
Today, the demo day for the graduating startups took place, with founders presenting their pitches to investors, Beacon said. The startup accelerator conducts two sessions every year, and this is the third batch since its inception in January 2023.
“This marks the one-year anniversary of Beacon,” Nailwal told The Block. “We accelerated 33 startups, expanded our investor network to more than 500, and our companies collectively raised more than $150 million.”
Beacon is part of Nailwal’s crypto venture Symbolic Capital and supports early-stage startups through mentorship and funding. Mentors include SoftBank executive Neil Cunha-Gomes, Coinbase vice president of business development Dan Kim, EigenLayer founder Sreeram Kannan and Pantera Capital managing partner Paul Veradittakit.
Beacon was founded with the goal of creating the next web3 100 unicorns. Nailwal expects “several” unicorns to emerge from the final third cohort of ten startups.
Beacon cohort F23
The ten startups that are part of the latest cohort are Zero Gravity, a developer of modular web3 infrastructure; Range Protocol, a DeFi asset management protocol; Fraction AI, a decentralized, human-powered data labeling platform for training AI models; Sending Labs, a web3 communications platform; Fluent, an Ethereum Layer 2 developer; Mizu, a crypto payment platform; Maru, a blockchain-scale infrastructure developer; Moso, a crypto rewards provider; Inco Network, a Layer 1 blockchain developer; and HyperOracle, which aims to redefine smart contracts for AI-powered blockchains.
Now that these startups have graduated from Beacon, the accelerator is preparing to launch its fourth cohort, S24, in the coming days.
Applications for S24 will open soon and will be available for about two months, says Sam Lehman, a core contributor at Beacon and director at Symbolic Capital.
“Then we will spend a few months doing our interviews, selecting the new cohort and aiming for the program to start in May and run through the end of August,” Lehman said.
Beacon receives more than 1,000 applications for its cohorts, Lehman said, adding that the accelerator selects 10 to 20 startups in each cohort after several rounds of interviews.
