Cronos Labs Kicks Off Second Cohort of Web3 Accelerator Program, Offering World’s First Mentorship at Intersection of AI and Blockchain
Cronos Labs today announced the second cohort of the flagship US$100M-backed Cronos Accelerator Program
Cronos Labs, a blockchain startup accelerator focusing on decentralized finance, blockchain games, and the development of the Cronos ecosystem, today announced the second cohort of the flagship US$100M-backed Cronos Accelerator Program. First launched in June 2022, the program targets early-stage crypto projects and provides them with mentorship and funding opportunities to encourage innovation and growth within the Cronos ecosystem and help propel the widespread adoption of Web3.
Following a 43% increase in applications in comparison to its prior cohort, Cronos Labs has selected eight projects to participate in the next iteration of its accelerator program. Each selected project received upfront seed funding of USD $30,000, and started the twelve-week program on 15th May 2023. The projects are:
Omnus - Web3 Game Development Ecosystem
DeMe - A Decentralized Social Network Platform
Furrend - A Pet-focused Video Sharing Platform
Solace - Wallet SDK Embedding Smart-contract Wallets Into Apps & Games
Sakaba - Loyalty Platform for Web3 Gaming
Eisen Finance - Exchange Aggregator Targeting Institutional Trading Firms
Earn Network - Liquid Marketplace for Yield-earning Opportunities
CorgiAi - An Ecosystem to Enable the Peer to Peer Economy of Generative AI.
Fostering AI-enabled innovation
As the world’s first AI-focused blockchain accelerator, a key theme of the second cohort is the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to accelerate Web3 adoption. Following their recent collaboration with Cronos Labs, AWS will provide AI-related workshops to selected participants, and conduct mentorship sessions. Cronos Labs will leverage AWS Activate to support the selected Web3 projects to scale and grow, providing them with access to AWS’ resources including machine learning and AI services.
Beyond access to AWS’ AI expertise, projects in the second cohort will be provided withfrom a curriculum centered around large language models alongside mentors with extensive experience in AI. Notable new partners of the second cohort of Cronos’ Accelerator Program include CertiK, Hacken and Covalent.
Ken Timsit, Head of Cronos Labs said, “The steep increase in the number of applications for the second cohort of the Cronos Accelerator Program is representative of the growing trust and belief within the wider Web3 ecosystem. Startups and developers are here to build the next iteration of technology, exemplified by the increased appetite we’ve seen in the volume of applications for this second cohort. The program remains focused on fostering innovation within the Cronos ecosystem, the leading Cosmos-built and Ethereum virtual machine-compatible blockchain, to ultimately propel the widespread adoption of Web3.”
Charlotte Kapoor, Head of Innovation Programs at Cronos Labs added, “This program is poised to nurture the intersection of broad-scale generative AI with innovative blockchain solutions, ultimately providing builders and users with the resources to achieve unparalleled growth. The space is brimming with opportunity, and the Cronos Accelerator Program will empower the selected projects with the tools required to build at the confluence of Cosmos and Ethereum within the Cronos ecosystem.”
Upon completion of the twelve-week program, the shortlisted projects will participate in a Demo Day in late July 2023, where they will pitch their projects to investment partners of the program in an opportunity to secure further seed funding. Investors include NGC, Fundamental Labs, Spartan Group and Delphi Digital.
About Cronos Chain
Cronos (cronos.org) is the first EVM-compatible Layer-1 blockchain network built on the Cosmos SDK, supported by Crypto.com, Crypto.org and more than 500 app developers and partners.
Cronos is building an open ecosystem where developers can create their own DeFi and GameFi applications, targeting a base of 80+ million users globally. In June 2022, Cronos Labs launched a $100M Accelerator Program to help developers build new projects and the future of Web3 within the Cronos ecosystem.
When developers build on Cronos, they can leverage all Ethereum developer tools (i.e. Solidity, Truffle, Hardhat, OpenZeppelin, Web3.js, ethers.js, ChainSafe Gaming SDK); leading crypto wallets (i.e. MetaMask, Crypto.com Defi Wallet, Trust Wallet); wrapped versions of the world's top 50 cryptocurrencies; Cronos Play, a suite of developer tools for Unity, C++ and Unreal engine; inter-blockchain communication (IBC) cross-chain connectivity to Cosmos chains; and a rich ecosystem of composable DeFi and GameFi dapps.