Quick take:
- Beacon is a 12-week accelerator program for early-stage Web3 startups.
- The program’s first cohort kicked off in October.
- Mentors to the cohort included Magic Eden CEO Jack Lu, Yield Guild Games co-founder Beryl Li and CoinFund partner Evan Fang.
Polygon and Symbolic Capital co-founder Sandeep Nailwal has launched a Web3 accelerator named Beacon.
Based in New York City, the 12-week accelerator program will support early-stage startups through mentorship and financing. The program’s first cohort kicked off in October with over 30 founders from 15 startups across DeFi, web3 infrastructure and gaming.
The cohort is mentored by Magic Eden CEO Jack Lu, Yield Guild Games co-founder Beryl Li and CoinFund partner Evan Fang. The names of those startups will be announced in January.
Other mentors of the accelerator program include SoftBank’s Neil Cunha-Gomes, Coinbase’s Dan Kim, Electric Capital’s Maria Shen and Pantera Capital’s Paul Veradittakit.
Beacon is part of Sandeep Nailwal’s venture capital firm, Symbolic Capital, which launched a $50 million Web3 fund in August. The program’s management team includes Uri Stav, former chief security officer of Digital Currency Group; Prateek Sharma, former president of Sequoia Capital; and Kenzi Wang, Nailwal’s co-founder at Symbolic Capital.
Nailwal said that the aim of this accelerator is to fund projects that can serve real customer needs and therefore drive mass adoption of Web3. Beacon’s ultimate goal is to build an alumni network of Web3 founders who can help each other succeed.
Beacon is building an in-house social network for founders and investors to connect with each other during and after the accelerator program. For investors, it has already built a custom platform where they can review projects, watch video pitches and get direct introductions to founders and learn more about them.
Applications to join the next cohort are open from now until Jan 31. Beacon will wrap up its accelerator program will with a live demo day next month where founders will pitch to more than 300 investors.
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