Sandeep Nailwal-backed Web3 accelerator launches demo day for first cohort
Summary
Beacon held a demo day on Jan. 10 with 13 graduating companies: Arcana, Blinkmoon, ChapterX, Colexion, Community Gaming, Cubist, FastLane, Meta Apes, Mystic Moose, Nillion, Davos Protocol, Timeswap and Ylide.Polygon co-founder and Beacon creator Sandeep Nailwal described the first batch of graduates as the MVP of Beacon because they were the first to demonstrate the accelerators chain-agnostic utility.Nailwal said Cohort 0 dealt with significant adversity as the turmoil from FTXs collapse reverberated across the market. We were worried that companies might start dropping out, so disheartened by the crypto markets, he said. Instead, everyone turned up and was ready to keep building through this.Applications for the upcoming intake, Cohort 1, will be open until Jan. 31, with up to $8 million in funding offered to 32 startups. Nailwal said the applicants would be evaluated for their project team, global reach, community and Web3 product solution.Web3 investment has dominated the venture capital scene over the past 12 months as investors continued to back new internet startups. In November, the Web3 sector saw 23 individual deals valued at a combined $168.3 million, according to Cointelegraph Research.