Crypto Startup School 2023: Recap & Resources

a16z crypto

6.8.23

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Crypto Startup School (CSS) is our early-stage accelerator, designed to foster growth in crypto startups through a variety of resources — including funding, mentorship, guidance from domain experts, and a network of fellow founders. The CSS 2023 program recently ended, culminating in a Demo Day event where the founders presented their projects to an audience of prospective investors and partners. 

We’re sharing a recap of the program and participants to provide a window into the past three months of in-person sessions in Santa Monica, CA. We’ve also begun publishing videos of each session so that any crypto founder can watch and benefit from the expert insights.

After announcing last fall that we were relaunching CSS, we were blown away by the level of interest we received from founders across the world: in just one month, we received more than 8,000 applications. After careful consideration and hundreds of interviews, we selected a small cohort of participants, so each project could build deep relationships with fellow founders and the a16z crypto team.

Founders in CSS23 originated from 11 countries: U.S., Canada, Ecuador, Argentina, UK, France, Germany, Portugal, Nigeria, UAE, and India.

CSS 2023 participants

Here are the 25 companies that completed our CSS23 program:

  • Bello turns complex blockchain data into no-code actionable insights for creators to drive growth, engage collectors, and succeed in the crypto economy.
  • Blockus is a complete web 2.5 in-game economy platform for game studios, seamlessly integrated into games.
  • Capsule is building developer infrastructure that makes it easier and safer to sign transactions on-chain.
  • ChainPatrol is a real-time security platform, providing the fastest way to block phishing attacks in web3.
  • Discove is a decentralized social client built on top of Farcaster, with an App Store of community-created feeds and plugins.
  • Eth.id is Facebook for web3. With just an email, they provide a wallet, universal domain that works on web3 and web2, personal website, and the ability to mint NFTs.
  • FINE is a web3 design platform that specializes in crafting unforgettable offline metaverse experiences.
  • FORMLESS is a creative technology lab headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They have domain expertise in web3, AI, AR, embedded systems, and media production.
  • Frens is web3 WeChat. Message and transact with friends, protocols, and smart contracts.
  • Fuul is the affiliate marketing protocol that enables trustless partnerships between crypto projects and creators.
  • Gandalf lets users create exclusive content for their web3 communities on web2 platforms like Typeform, Substack, and Notion.
  • IYK empowers anyone to create verifiable, digi-physical consumer experiences.
  • KIKI is a community-driven beauty platform for the co-creation and co-ownership of beauty products.
  • Lockbox enables programmable workflows that transform on- and off-chain data into actionable insights.
  • ‘Mbd is a better recommendation system for the world, built by ZKAI Labs.
  • Mentaport is the geolocation platform for web3.
  • Narval is the web3 wallet platform for organizations.
  • Pimlico is building infrastructure to allow smart contract wallets to fully leverage the benefits of ERC-4337.
  • Primev is a blockbuilder communication network for MEV actors to have better transaction execution.
  • Shield helps web3 platforms adopt higher security standards to build trust and drive growth.
  • Sky Lab builds primitives of autonomous worlds that encourage on-chain game developers to focus on building fun games and players to explore a world of games with a shared economic layer.
  • Stackr provides micro-rollups to scale web3 applications, allowing developers to build app-specific rollups on Ethereum in web2 programming languages using Stackr SDK.
  • Hourglass is a new web browser designed specifically for crypto experiences, built by Triangle Labs.
  • Web3 Analytic is building user acquisition tools for DeFi.
  • ZeroDev is an extensible and embeddable smart wallet.

It was a privilege to work closely with each of these stellar teams and witness their growth first-hand. 

Speakers

Over the course of the program, more than 40 speakers came to our office in Santa Monica dedicated to CSS office, sharing presentations, workshops, founder talks, office hours/ counsels, and more. Below is a list of the speakers and topics; we will continue updating this post with links to videos as they become available.

Presentations

The big picture

Product & UX design

Protocol & token design, zero-knowledge, more

Business mechanics of web3

Infrastructure & security

Decentralization, legal, & governance

Operations & company building

Regulatory & government affairs

Marketing & community building

Go-to market (GTM) & fundraising

Mentors

We would like to thank the mentors who made themselves available to provide guidance and encouragement to the CSS founders, including:

  • Alex Pruden, CEO, Aleo
  • Mo Shaikh, Co-founder and CEO, Aptos
  • Avery Ching, Co-founder and CTO, Aptos
  • Sam Williams, CEO, Arweave
  • Dillon Rosenblatt, Co-founder and CEO, Autograph
  • Brian Weinstein, President and COO, Bad Robot
  • Deana Burke, Founder, Boys Club 
  • Natasha Hoskins, Founder, Boys Club
  • Phil Quist, Music & Web3 Agent, CAA
  • Dexter Tortoriello, Co-founder and CTO, FWB
  • Eleni Steinman, Co-founder and CEO, Loop Crypto
  • Anthony Borquez, CEO, Grab Games
  • David Greenstein, Co-founder and CEO, Sound.xyz
  • Julia Yan, Head of Growth, TikTok
  • Matt Galligan, Co-founder and CEO, XMTP

Contributions

We are also grateful to the a16z crypto portfolio companies that provided material support to the CSS23 cohort. 

  • Alchemy offered credits, VIP technical support, mentorship, co-marketing, and a variety of educational resources. 
  • The zkSync community earmarked $1 million to invest in CSS founders and teams committed to Ethereum and zkSync Era.
  • Protocol Labs provided privileged engineering support, decentralized Filecoin storage credits, talent support, and access to their invite-only FOUNDERS community. 
  • Solana Foundation set up a fund for CSS projects (up to $1M) building on their platform, and is offering additional support in areas such as design, technical guidance, and office space. 

What’s next for CSS? We’ll be sharing some details of our plans for the next program soon, so stay tuned 👀.

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