ArGo Protocol, MotoDB, and MooPay, the top three startups involved in the NEAR Blockchain Accelerator Program, will receive grant funding, networking opportunities, and go-to-market support.
NEAR announces additional grants and support for runners-up as part of broader ecosystem development.
Woodstock Fund, Fracton Ventures, and Buidlers Tribe to provide additional support to these teams to continue their growth and help them scale further
NEAR Protocol, a super fast and secure open-source, developer-friendly, carbon-neutral blockchain, today announced ArGo Protocol, MotoDB, and MooPay as the winners of the three-month NEAR Blockchain Accelerator program. Prizes included a share of $100K along with support services aimed at strengthening the developer ecosystem in India.
Over 175 developers and innovators from across India participated in the virtual event. Finalists also participated in a four-week NEAR Blockchain Accelerator Bootcamp which consisted of a mentorship program and one-on-one sessions to help navigate the regulatory environment. Industry mentors included Tanvi Ratna, Pareen Lathia, Raghu Mohan, Didier Pironi, Anish Mohammed, Jason Shah, and other leaders involved in entrepreneurship, product development, and marketing. Teams were also invited to join NEAR’s Certified Developer Program to better understand and leverage the NEAR Protocol.
"The positive response received throughout the NEAR Blockchain Accelerator program has been a testimony to the spirit of innovation in the Indian developer pool. Through the course of this three-month-long program, we had the opportunity to support and mentor some of the brightest minds in India."
He added:
"With India being a globally recognized technology hub today, the participants of the accelerator presented novel blockchain concepts that we at the NEAR Protocol were glad to support. Our entry into the Indian market has been filled with unique ideas and Lumos Labs has been instrumental in augmenting the outreach."
On the final Demo Day of the NEAR Blockchain Accelerator, six chosen finalists -- ArGo Protocol, Genebloc Private Limited, MooPay, Motodb, Pixelate, and PredictRAM--pitched their futuristic NEAR blockchain-based solutions to a panel of expert judges. Of those six, three were announced as the winners:
ArGo Protocol, a decentralized hosting and storage protocol for enterprises and developers.
MotoDB, a decentralized blockchain, and DApp focussed on the automobile space.
MooPay, a blockchain-based payment and business solution for commerce and Woodstock Fund.
The keynote session, led by NEAR Co-founder Illia Polosukhin and Robert Yan, NEAR’s Head of Developer Relations in Asia, explored The State of Web 3.0 Startups in India with Angel Investor and Serial Entrepreneur Ajeet Khurana, Policy 4.0 CEO Tanvi Ratna, and Raghu Mohan, CEO and co-founder of Lumos Labs.
The NEAR Blockchain Accelerator was launched in partnership with Lumos Labs, an innovation management firm, Woodstock Fund, a DLT- focussed multi-asset investment fund, Fracton Ventures, a prominent Web3.0 Japanese investment and development platform, and Buidlers Tribe, an incubator dedicated to driving the blockchain-based startup innovation in India.
Furthermore, Woodstock Fund announced it will review and reward solutions with an additional $100K pool as part of its commitment to NEAR ecosystem development.
About NEAR Protocol:
Founded in 2017 by Illia Polosukhin and Alexander Skidanov, NEAR is a decentralized development platform built on top of the NEAR Protocol, which is a public, sharded, developer-friendly, proof-of-stake blockchain that’s carbon neutral, incredibly secure, and super fast. NEAR has one of the fastest-growing developer communities in crypto and 1 million active wallets. NEAR Protocol is built by a world-class team of engineers and entrepreneurs, who have won 2 ICPC world championships and medals, Google Code Jam and TopCoder. NEAR is backed by A16Z, Pantera Capital, Electric Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Blockchain.com, and Baidu Ventures. Visit www.near.org
About Woodstock Fund:
Woodstock is a multi-asset emerging technology fund house currently focused on investments in Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) with emphasis on four areas - Infrastructure layer, Decentralized Finance (DeFi), Web 3.0 protocols, and Tokenization (both fungible and non-fungible). Woodstock works diligently with portfolio companies to help them scale and grow their ecosystem globally. Woodstock has made early-stage investments in pioneering DLT companies - Elrond, Covalent, Terra Virtua, Propine, and Band Protocol among others.
To learn more about Woodstock Fund, please visit- https://woodstockfund.com/
About Fracton Ventures:
Fracton Ventures is a network of experts, investors, and developers who co-create the future of Web 3.0 as contributors rather than just supporters. Their current activities include a commitment to DAO as a corporation (community participation, co-development, planning/design), educational and research activities in the Web3.0 area, and expansion of existing Web3.0 products into and from Japan. We also provide opportunities for upcoming projects in the Web3.0 space to connect with potential Japanese investment groups and support early product and business development needs.
To learn more about Fracton Ventures, please visit- https://fracton.ventures/
About Lumos Labs: Lumos Labs is a Singapore-based innovation management firm that specializes in running technology open innovation programs. Founded in 2018, the company has run several accelerators and open innovation programs for multiple Indian and international technology firms, corporates, governments, and investment firms. Their services include Growth Services, Open Innovation, Start-up Enablement, and organizing large-scale developer & technology conferences & hackathons. Their clients include Aeternity Starfleet Blockchain startup accelerator, T-block blockchain startup accelerator, Genesis hack - A Blockchain Hackathon, Binance Build for Bharat Accelerator
For more details, visit - https://www.lumoslabs.co/
Media Contact:
Susan Joseph
Head of PR, Lumos Labs
susan@lumoslabs.co | 9900029191
Alina Ahmed
PR Associate, Lumos Labs
alina@lumoslabs.co | 8826380775
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