A few days ago, a16z announced the 2024 Fall Accelerator Program, a total of 20 projects. There must be a lot of people participating in the front row. I sorted out all the project information, found the most valuable projects, and ranked them according to importance.
Conclusion
1. Foreigners prefer to apply for projects in the early stage, so many projects can be applied for now, and the application links are placed in the article
2. The projects of a16z's Creation Camp this time are diverse, and basically every sub-track is included: among them, projects numbered 1-4 are relatively mature, and it is recommended to participate.
Although the products and visions of No. 5-10 are not mature, they are very interesting and have received good financing. I suggest you try them.
I have ranked all the projects according to their personal importance, and you can use them according to your needs.
3. There are 11 projects in the early stage, so please continue to pay attention to them (two of them are web2 encryption projects, which will only be explained this time without further subdivision)
4. The accelerator is basically a ticket to get investment from a16z. There should be several projects in this batch that can get investment from a16z, and you can focus on participating in it (similar to Binance's MVB)
5. For each project, I have briefly written a project introduction, personal understanding and evaluation + participation methods. You are welcome to check it out.
#a16z #AI板块强势进击 #PINAI融资成功
Best quality projects
1、PINE
Building a personal AI open platform (data + agent)
It is an AI + DePin project, which introduces artificial intelligence into existing mobile devices.
https://pinai.io
In addition to Hack VC and a16z CSX, PIN AI has also received funding from a group of well-known investors, including Blockchain Builders Fund (Stanford Blockchain Accelerator), Illia Polosukhin (one of the authors of the Transformer paper; founder of NEAR Protocol), Anagram/Lily Liu (Chairman of SOL Foundation), Symbolic Capital (co-founder of Polygon), Evan Cheng (CEO of Mysten Labs/SUI), dcbuilder (Worldcoin Foundation), Foresight Ventures (parent company of the Block), Nomad Capital, Tim Shi (co-founder of AI unicorn http://Cresta.ai), Ben Fisch (CEO of Espresso), Scott Moore (co-founder of Gitcoin), Alumni Ventures (top 20 VC selected by CB Insights '24) and Dispersion Capital (former director of Samsung Next), as well as other well-known investors.
The project financing background is good and worth participating in
How to participate: Official website subscription: https://pinai.io
2、Fermah
Fermah is a universal proof generation layer.
It functions like a marketplace where the supply side consists of machines like GPUs and FPGAs. Initially, the supply side is bootstrapped by EigenLayer Operators.
On the demand side, seekers can request Fermah to generate proofs for any instance of using ZK — be it zkRollups, ZK-bridges, zkCoprocessors, ZKML, or anything else. The demand and supply sides align with Fermah’s Matchmaker.
https://fermah.xyz
Have an established financing background: a16z CSX Fund and Lemniscap contributed to our seed round.
The project also received participation from funds such as Bankless Ventures, Longhash Ventures, P-OPS Team, Public Works, ZK Validator, Lambda Class, Daedalus, Zero DAO, Velocity Capital and Daemon Ventures.
In addition to funding, S-level builders also participated in this round of financing as angel investors, including Balaji, former CTO of Coinbase and A16z GP, Mustafa and Nick, CEO and COO of Celestia, Sandeep, Jaynti and Daniel, co-founders of Polygon, Zac and Claire, CEO and CMO of Aztec, Sergey, CEO of Axelar, Greg, co-founder of Geometry, etc.
Join the test: https://fermah.xyz/devnet
3、Term
Term is a non-custodial, scalable, fixed-rate lending protocol that uses a novel on-chain double auction mechanism to determine fixed rates for borrowers and lenders trading on the platform. It brings borrowers and lenders together in a fair and transparent auction process to determine a single market clearing rate that all participants will pay or receive, regardless of size.
https://term.finance
The project has raised a total of US$8 million in financing, led by Electric Capital, with participation from Circle Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Robot Ventures and other well-known institutions.
There is a clear points system to participate in: https://term.finance/post/points
4、Blocksense
Blocksense is a Zk Rollup-based oracle solution that aims to revolutionize the oracle network by reducing high costs through tightly packaged data blocks, introducing a transparent fee model, and providing fully decentralized, permissionless data feeds. Anyone can become a data provider on the network by staking BlockSense tokens.
https://blocksense.network
The oracle network Blocksense Network has completed a $4 million seed round of financing. This round of financing was led by Permutation, with participation from a16z's Crypto Startup Accelerator (CSX), Scott Moore, Public Works, Tykhe Block Ventures, Selini Capital, and MH Ventures.
The team has a good background and strong strength. They were members of the previous manta, nimbus and eth client teams.
Question: The oracle track is very crowded, and the head effect is obvious. Can it stand out? But I still recommend participating.
Apply to become an early adopter: https://airtable.com/apphcztjkgfgFU8PZ/shrmhAObEV2rbbe89…
Relatively good project
5、zkspin
zkSpin is building a highly parallel blockchain to run demanding DApps on-chain. Games built using the Spin SDK will consist of three components: provable gameplay written in Rust, on-chain contracts written in Solidity, and a front-end UI written in React.
https://zkspin.xyz
This project was not only selected for the a16z accelerator, but also for this year’s MIT x Harvard Blockchain Accelerator
This story is also quite popular this year, but it has not yet made a splash. Stay tuned.
The coin will be issued in January 25th year, everyone can pay attention to it
6、Cork
Cork is a novel financial primitive that helps price the decoupling risk of on-chain credit. Pegged assets such as liquidity (re)collateralized tokens and stablecoins are a form of on-chain credit that attempt to maintain a 1:1 value with an underlying asset such as USD or ETH. These assets are widely used in decentralized finance, but can result in potential losses due to asset decoupling due to liquidity shocks or black swan events.
Cork aims to solve this problem by allowing market participants to hedge or trade their pegged asset risk through a new financial primitive, Depeg Swap. Depeg Swap reflects the pricing of decoupling risk of the pegged asset and can be used for hedging, speculation, and composable integration in DeFi.
https://cork.tech
The project has a certain degree of innovation, it is recommended to participate
Join the competition: https://cork.tech/cork-protocol-testnet-trading-competition…
This competition ends at the end of the month, a total of 12 days
7、Dot
Dot is the place to turn user-generated pixel art into the future of hyper-casual social games - on-chain gaming. Imagine making your own unique pixel art cards that aren't just works of art - they're powerful game pieces in a dynamic, evolving universe.
The world of the project thrives on player creativity and collaboration. Art assets are cc0 and game data is composable. Use this power to shape your own tools, games, and experiences. Dot is a vibrant platform where imagination and collaboration shape adventure.
The project's blockchain-based economy rewards both skill and creativity. Whether you're a Twitch ninja or pixel art master Vincent van Gogh, Dot has something to keep you excited:
https://dot.fan
Very interesting, I recommend you to participate
Participation: Directly participate in the corresponding product module through the website
8、Kuzco
Kuzco is a distributed GPU cluster built on the Solana blockchain, designed to facilitate efficient and economical inference of large language models (LLMs) such as Llama3, Mistral, Phi3, etc. By leveraging idle computing resources contributed by network participants, Kuzco enables users to access these models through an OpenAI-compatible API.
https://kuzco.xyz
io's competitor, users who have participated in io mining before can take a look. If you are still optimistic about the ai + depin track, you can pay attention to this project to see if a16z will invest
Kuzco Workers is now online
Deployment information: https://docs.kuzco.xyz/docker
9、meshmap
A decentralized and open world 3D map
https://meshmap.com
depin + metaverse + game play, the project story is good, the play is novel, let's see if we can get investment
City Champ will be available for pre-release in October 2024 for Meta Quest 2/3/Pro and Magic Leap 2.
Currently in the public beta stage, follow the progress: https://twitter.com/CityChampXYZ
10、t1
The t1 protocol is a fast finality scaling solution for Ethereum. It supports real-time proof generation to unify Ethereum.
https://t1protocol.com
The team is good, the financing is pre-seed round, a16z participated in the investment, but the project is in its early stage, and not much information is disclosed
Since these are projects from the Chuangzao Camp, 11 of them are relatively early and have less information to disclose. I have summarized them and made a brief review below. You can follow the progress on your own and follow up in time if there is any progress:
11、Anera Labs
Build a liquidity infrastructure that unifies all on-chain liquidity
https://aneralabs.xyz
The project is in its infancy and there is not much content. You can pay attention to it first.
12、banyan
Leveraging AI to bridge the communication gap at work and bring clarity to the business
https://banyan.computer
The project is in its infancy and there is not much content. You can pay attention to it first.
13、opacity
Privately verifying web2 data with zkTLS
https://opacity.network
Application: https://aooip6f1gp2.typeform.com/to/F2waCCw3?typeform-source=www.opacity.network…
14、OpenGradient
Building a blockchain that aims to bring the world’s computing power on-chain
https://opengradient.ai
The project is in its infancy, AI + blockchain project
Apply: https://4ebpne0kkky.typeform.com/to/db5GQtFC
15、under
A new L1 primitive that is blockless, leaderless, and relaxes the notion of total ordering of transactions
https://pod.network
Project disclosure is less, keep paying attention
16、joins
Makes it easy to create, share and monetize interactive narratives
https://joinsek.ai
I understand it is an AI-created content product
Participate in the story creation competition: https://joinsek.ai/contests
17、suave
Enables DApps to accept any token from any wallet on any blockchain t1: Generate proofs in real time to unify Ethereum
https://suave.money
I understand that it is a bit like a web3 cross-chain payment system in the form of web2 without any sense
Request permission: https://suave.money/request
18. I am silent
TACEO is creating the Computational Layer Security (CLS) protocol to make blockchain computations encrypted by default. CLS enables each application to compute on a private shared state. At its core will be the MPC-VM capable of generating collaborative SNARKs.
https://taceo.io
The project is relatively early, you can learn and deploy some things according to its documentation: https://docs.taceo.io/overview.html
19、vlayer
Trustless verifiable data infrastructure powered by zero-knowledge proofs
https://vlayer.xyz
Keep following
Application: https://gplxanr6y5w.typeform.com/to/Z1QwhWZg
20、http://per.ma
Create a new home for your Internet photo friends
https://per.ma
Products that are more web2-oriented will not be described in detail here
21、skyfire
An open payment protocol that enables AI agents to pay for anything
https://skyfire.xyz
It looks more like web2, so I won’t look at this project for now.
