Source: news.google.com
It’s no exaggeration to say that recent events have made Web3’s terrain tougher: founders are thinking of closing shop, investors have been seared by big bets gone awry, and several early-stage Web3 startups are facing a drought. of financing.
All of this has increased the clamor for Indian Web3 accelerators and startup incubation programs that help founders understand industry patterns and challenges.
is one among them. Helps early-stage Indian Web3 startups find mentors and get discovered by venture capitalists and angel investors like Hashed, Blume Ventures, Gemba Capital, Paradigm Shift Capital and Nischal Shetty (Founder of Y ), among others.
The idea to establish Foundership came from industry veterans. santosh panda Y bimlesh gundurao in January, after they began offering probono services to startups with the intention of promoting Web3 entrepreneurship in Tier II and III cities. But it was in May that Foundership kicked off its six-month LaunchCamp program.
“It’s extremely challenging to build a million dollar Web3 startup as a solo founder or even with two co-founders if they don’t have the ecosystem to support them,” Santosh says in a conversation with The history of decryption.
Foundership offers a three-week incubation program called 0xCamp, where startups can choose from various networking opportunities, such as master classes and guided sessions with trainers.
From this cohort, Foundership chooses a handful of startups for the intensive six-month LaunchCamp, after which it earns a 1.5% equity stake in a company. “When we announced our programs, we expected 50-60 applications, but we received 250 applications from early-stage entrepreneurs,” says Santosh.
How is the throttle deployed?
Foundership makes it easy for any startup to join 0xCamp. Any Web3 company with a minimum viable product (MVP) and early traction can apply. Once inside, startups are mentored by Indian and global industry experts. These include those of Coach DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) which has big names like David Atkinson (Business Director of Holochain), Simon Emanuel Schmid (Solutions Engineer at The Graph), Ramani Ramachandran (CEO of Router Protocol), Greg DSouza (Co – founder, bl0xchain) and Subhendu Panigrahi (co-founder and CEO of Skillenza), among others.
For a founder like Aju G Nair, who created LinkDot, a Web3 credentials platform, having a systematic process to shape his product into an MVP stage was crucial. “As an early-stage startup, we lacked mentors with substantial experience and operational skills to advise us,” he says, adding that this was part of the reason he joined 0xCamp.
At the end of the program, around seven startups are selected to be part of LaunchCamp, where dedicated coaches mentor them in turning their ideas into viable business models. According to Raushan Sharma, co-founder of Web3 native blogging platform Trikl, interacting with the trainers at LaunchCamp helped the startup change its business model completely. His company is one of three in the program that is in the process of raising capital from LaunchCamp.
“We evaluate entrepreneurs who have the potential to broaden their horizons by their ability to take feedback, challenge their own theories, and then come back and present it to coaches,” says Subhendu Panigrahi, who is currently a mentor for Web3 startups LinkDot. and remember. .
Trainers involved with Foundership are encouraged to have a skin approach to the game. To this end, they actively track the progress of these startups. “We do weekly one-on-one calls with them and my job is to get these startups market-ready, bankable and open the doors for venture capitalists in six months,” says Subhendu.
Of course, it’s not all about raising capital. For Bimlesh, it’s also important to get the right guidance at a critical moment. “At the end of the day, if you don’t have someone to share your ideas with as a founder, then the capital is worthless,” he says.