Following 3 Unicorns in 2 Years, Web3 Accelerator Beacon Launches Its Largest Cohort to Date

[PRESS RELEASE – New York, New York, September 12th, 2024]

Leading web3 accelerator program Beacon has announced the launch of its fourth and largest cohort to date. Beacon, which finances projects from pre-seed to Series A, has selected 17 promising companies for its latest three-month program, marking a significant expansion from previous cohorts.

The latest group is composed of the highest-profile firms in the history of Beacon, which was launched by Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal in 2022. Featuring multiple Series A companies backed by heavyweight VCs firms like Pantera, Founders Fund, Framework, and Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), the cohort spans multiple web3 sectors including DeFi, infrastructure, and AI. Among the notable participants are Stakestone, EXO, Nubit, Aligned Layer, and eoracle.

“We’re thrilled to welcome our largest and most diverse cohort so far,” said Sandeep Nailwal, Co-Founder of Polygon and Beacon. “The caliber of companies joining us in the latest program is truly exceptional, and we’re excited to see how, with the aid of our mentorship and resources, they’ll go on to shape the future of web3 and beyond.”

The announcement comes on the heels of the graduation of Beacon’s highly successful S23 cohort which consisted of 10 companies, many of whom have made a major mark since being selected. S23 alumni included scalable data availability layer 0G and verifiable oracle protocol ORA, both of whom have achieved unicorn status since graduating.

While ORA secured $20 million funding in a round led by Polychain Capital, Inco, a universal confidentiality layer, closed a $4.5 million seed round led by 1kx, with participation from dao5 and Robot Ventures. Ethereum L2 solution Fluent, meanwhile, raised $7.5 million in a seed round co-led by Polychain Capital and dao5.

These success stories have set the bar high for the latest cohort, particularly given the impressive background and early traction of the participating companies. Both Aligned Layer and Nubit have already conducted Series A rounds, raising $20 million and $12 million respectively. The full list of companies in Beacon’s Cohort S24 are as follows:

• Aligned Layer – Aligned Layer is a decentralized network that verifies zero-knowledge/validity proofs and posts the results to Ethereum. It is designed to provide high throughput, cheap proof verification with low latency.
• Avantis – Avatnis’ infrastructure provides traders access to up to 100x leverage for major cryptocurrencies, forex and commodities pairs.
• Compute Labs – Compute Labs leverages its self-developed Compute Tokenization Protocol to financialize AI, enable direct exposure to compute assets, and create compute derivatives, empowering investors to effortlessly yield from compute, the currency of the future.
• Crynux – Founded by ex-Google engineers and scientists, Crynux is building a permissionless and trustless protocol for truly decentralized AI.
• eoracle – eoracle is a programmable data layer that extends Ethereum Proof of Stake to connect smart contracts with real-world data.
• EXO – Exo allows you to run your own AI cluster at home using everyday devices.
• EZKL – EZKL is a developer-friendly system for verifiable AI and analytics. With tens of millions of proofs computed every month, it powers a variety of delegated and decentralized systems
• Lorenzo – Lorenzo is the Bitcoin Liquidity Finance Layer, designed to meet the growing global demand for Bitcoin liquidity across L2s, DeFi, and trading platforms. It enables Bitcoin holders to efficiently invest in top yield opportunities through its premier DeFi ecosystem.
• Nodekit – NodeKit is building Javelin, the first superbuilder restoring composability to rollups.
• Nubit – Nubit is a scalable, cost-efficient, data availability layer secured by Bitcoin for the Bitcoin community. Nubit enables the scaling of Bitcoin’s data capacities, empowering applications like Ordinals, Layer 2s, and price oracles, thus broadening the scope and efficiency of the Bitcoin ecosystem.
• Othentic – Othentic provides infrastructure to build distributed services. Their infra simplifies AVS development on Eigenlayer, with over 30 projects leveraging the Othentic stack.
• PADO – PADO is a Decentralized zkAttestation and Computation Network with the vision of liberating locked Internet data to Web3.
• Pallet – Pallet Exchange is the hub for digital culture, community, and ownership on Sei.
• Pin AI – PIN AI is The Open Platform for Personal AI. Built on open source AI, leveraging crypto for data ownership & privacy.
• Stakestone – StakeStone is an omni-chain Liquid Staking Token (LST) protocol enhancing staking yields and liquidity on Layer 2s. Its architecture supports multi-chain liquidity with its native token, STONE, and introduces the Optimizing Portfolio and Allocation Proposal (OPAP) for transparent and optimized yields.
• TAC – TON App Chain (TAC) is an interoperability layer for TON blockchain and EVM-based applications.
• Warlock – Warlock is building new primitives to disrupt and disintermediate the MEV landscape.

“With the level of talent and innovation we’re witnessing in this new group, we are entirely confident that they can emulate, if not surpass, their predecessors,” said Nailwal.

Beacon’s biannual three-month program runs provides startups with mentorship, resources, and capital to accelerate their growth and development, with the program having established itself as a premier launchpad for web3 innovation.

About Beacon:

Beacon is an early-stage web3 accelerator program for promising startups. Launched by Polygon and Symbolic Capital co-founder Sandeep Nailwal, the program supports DeFi, gaming, infrastructure, AI, and other web3 ventures with financing, mentorship and resources, with the aim of identifying projects that serve real-world needs. The 12-week program runs twice per year.