polygon (MATIC) – originally started as an Ethereum (ETH-USD) scalable solution: It has gradually grown into a huge ecosystem favored by hundreds of top brands and companies entering Web3 and the metaverse.

Led by co-founder Sandeep Nailwal, the Polygon ecosystem has made significant strides toward user, developer, and project onboarding through its focus on scalability. This availability of options for developers and projects looking to create decentralized applications (dApps) with the potential to go mainstream is a primary reason why hundreds of well-known brands and projects like Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX), Reddit and Instagram have joined the Polygon chain.

In addition to multinational brands, Indian Web3 and blockchain startups are proactively taking advantage of Polygon’s broad reach and carefully laid out steps, using it as a launch pad to realize their development aspirations. As they seek similar results, Indian Web3 startups are following Polygon’s lead to increase their international presence and avoid missing out on Web3 after failing to take advantage of Web2 opportunities.

Polygon growth sets new benchmarks for cryptocurrencies

According to the latest numbers, Polygon is now home to over 135 million unique wallet addresses, 13,000 delegators, and over 145,000 smart contract creators. According to figures reported by the company, more than 37,000 dApps have used Polygon’s infrastructure to scale.

“Thanks to its vast composable ecosystem, initiatives launched on Polygon can reach a wide and diverse audience of users, investors and partners around the world,” explains Sandeep Nailwal. “We place a strong emphasis on fostering innovation and community engagement, creating opportunities for local initiatives to get involved and contribute to the Polygon ecosystem and gain visibility on a global scale.”

Nailwal is looking at the big picture of “Web3 adoption” and is involved in initiatives to promote the growth and development of the industry in India and around the world. He recently launched the Beacon accelerator, ran hackathons like Encode, and founded Symbolic Capital; Symbolic Capital recently raised $450 million to help accelerate the growth of the ecosystem and support Web3 developers. Already, $100 million has been allocated to an “ecosystem fund” to help developers and early-stage projects break into the Web3 market.

Commenting on the Indian blockchain landscape, Hashed Emergent, a fund that supports Web3 developers in emerging markets, notes: “The Indian Web3 ecosystem is growing in terms of talent and funding, with an evolving regulatory landscape. Funding is not just flowing into exchanges, but also into startups that are being built for real-world Web3 use cases. We are focusing on Web2.5 solutions, that is, businesses at the crossroads of Web2 and Web3. These include existing business models that leverage blockchain to build sustainable businesses; and Web3 projects that adopt tried and tested methods from Web2 to build scalability.”

Recent figures underline the perspective of Hash Emergent. India controls over 11% of the global Web3 talent pool, making it the third largest Web3 talent pool in the world. Furthermore, India currently ranks among the top five countries globally for crypto adoption, and when it comes to new-age technologies like blockchain and Web3, India has positioned itself as a formidable force as home to more than 450 startups. Web3 assets, including four unicorns. (private companies with a value of more than one billion dollars).

As confidence and interest from international investors continue to rise, investments in Indian Web3 startups are on the rise. Over 60% of Indian Web3 startups have expanded their footprints globally, with most of their talent base located in India.

The scalable springboard to the global stage

Taking a page from the Polygon playbook, the Indian community of Web3 startups is aligning to seize international growth opportunities, with Polygon serving as the launch pad for Web3 initiatives covering social media, decentralized finance , games and NFTs.

Social media initiative Taki is one such company building on Polygon to market its approach to the creator economy to a broader audience. Through its decentralized and token-based model, in which creators and influencers hold a stake in the network and monetize by creating their own “user coins”, the platform has already attracted over 800,000 users.

Glip, an internationally focused Web3 startup, is similarly employing Indian talent from Web3 and Polygon to grow its global presence. The game discovery platform and wallet solution are already widespread in Asia-Pacific, with over seven million downloads and two million active users. The platform plans to expand its offerings within the gaming vertical, eventually becoming an end-to-end solution for gaming services, including content monetization.

Apart from the gaming and social media segments, another local company making inroads into Polygon is Chennai-based GuardianLink. The company’s suite of code-free NFT solutions offers the tools to support the efforts of multinational brands, artists and celebrities to enter the space in a decentralized manner. Through its branded marketplace offering, minting, publishing, auction functionality and web monitoring contributing to its launch pad, GuardianLink’s drag and drop functionalities aim to improve user engagement with fans, customers and other key stakeholders.

Decentralized finance is another area that Indian startups are looking for, and while Ethereum hosts the bulk of the protocols, Polygon is not far behind, with over 60 protocols. To help DeFi users access the various protocols across different networks from one interface, Kana Labs, which operates out of Chennai, offers a Polygon-connected wallet and dApp aggregator. From this wallet, multiple products and services provide access to different lending, lending, equity, and yield farming opportunities.

Taking advantage of the polygonal wave

With infrastructure solutions like Polygon, India’s local dApps and protocols have entered a new era where the country is producing more consumer-facing solutions in segments like DeFi, NFT, blockchain gaming, and the metaverse. This progress is noteworthy given the unclear regulatory landscape.

Although the country taxes crypto earnings and makes tax deductions at source (TDS), the government continues to wrangle over regulations without an official framework. However, this has not deterred VC funds and angel investors from embracing India’s Web3 ecosystem.

While Web3 is still evolving around the world, startups like Polygon are spearheading the Indian Web3 revolution. At the same time, Polygon also provides builders with all the necessary resources to ensure that India (and Asia) does not miss out on untapped opportunities. Thanks to these efforts, dozens of other local Web3 start-ups are actively positioning India as a prime market for Web3 for the foreseeable future.

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