The PolygonLEAP 2021 Accelerator, launched by Polygon and Lumos Labs late last year, announced its first cohort of 31 startups today. Aimed at driving innovation and supporting Indian startups’ in their Web3 journey, this accelerator will now move to support the 31 shortlisted solutions, selected from over 270 applicants globally, in building their innovative decentralised ideas while getting access to expert mentorship, ecosystem support, and marketing support in the Bootcamp phase.
The Accelerator launched on the 8th of December, 2021 is organized by Lumos Labs, a technology innovation management firm, in partnership with Polygon, one of the largest blockchain ecosystems in the world. It is further supported by Incubation partner Buidlers Tribe and investment partners from leading web3 venture capital firms including, CoinDCX, Digital Finance Group, Elevation Capital, Hashed, Jsquare, Jump Capital, Lightspeed, Picus Capital, Sino Global Capital, and Woodstock Fund. The winning startups stand a chance to win a grant amount of $250,000 set aside by Polygon apart from an additional prize pool of a whopping $12 million+ from the investment partners, subject to due diligence and investment thesis fit.
The accelerator saw over 270 applications, of which 160 were Web3 startups from all across the globe. The Bootcamp phase will consist of selected startups building their visionary solutions across several tracks, with the entertainment sector leading the race along with sectors such as gaming, payments, Metaverse, NFTs, etc. Furthermore, leading industry experts will equip them with the right guidance through mentor sessions along with several meetups and workshops that will be organized to help these solutions scale up.
“At Polygon, we envision an open and borderless world and strive to empower budding developers to build this new world. We look forward to working with the selected startups and continue this journey of building a brighter future for Web3.” –Sandeep Nailwal, Co-founder, Polygon.
“We feel delighted to work with Polygon on this Accelerator programme as it will strengthen the startups in multiple ways. India ranks third in the global list of countries with the largest startup ecosystems, right after the U.S. and U.K., and it seems like there is no stopping this growth. With this, it becomes important for the new startups to enter the ecosystem with all the prerequisites in order to survive. This initiative is focussed on overcoming this barrier and we are excited to be a part of this.” – Kaavya Prasad, Co-founder, Lumos Labs
The Blockchain industry has been expanding rapidly with the NFT market surpassing $40 billion in value in 2021, the addressable market of the metaverse being estimated at $8 trillion, and blockchain adoption in capital markets projected to reach $27 trillion as early as 2027. Furthermore, the Asia region has been at the forefront of this emerging technology consistently. The industry has been the hub of accelerated innovations and has encouraged the startup sector immensely with new ideas, visions, and solutions constantly emerging and generating significant interest across a wide range of industries in India. As the field of applications for Blockchain grows, such startups are continuously contributing to customizing and tailoring the technology to fit multiple use cases.
