10X Founders Demo Day v2.0 has opened applications for its 25 August online event, where eight start-ups will pitch live to active venture capital investors for access to a support package valued at more than $150,000.
The event is being organised by Inspira Labs, Yellow and Cicada, with applications closing on 20 August. Selected teams will be contacted directly by the Inspira Labs team via Telegram.
The prize is designed as an acceleration package rather than a conventional cash award. Its components cover services that early-stage companies often need before launching or scaling, including technical support, audits, market access, liquidity, media exposure, community campaigns and growth assistance.
Sonic, the event’s Anchor Partner, will provide the winning team with a $20,000 ecosystem grant, a place in its builder programme and technical assistance to support its launch. All finalists will also receive access to the Sonic ecosystem.
Injective is offering up to $20,000, subject to its own internal due diligence on the successful team.
Hacken will provide $15,000 in audit credits. Smart-contract audits are commonly expected by exchanges and institutional partners before they list or integrate a project, while comparable work on the open market can cost five figures and delay a launch for months.
Atlas, an oracle provider backed by CoinMarketCap, is contributing $5,000 in first-party price feeds sourced from more than 905 exchanges, as well as a complimentary CoinMarketCap listing. The organisers say building equivalent data infrastructure internally can take several months.
Cointelegraph Accelerator is adding $10,000 in media credits, while Galxe is providing its Essentials Plus package, valued at $6,000, for campaign and quest tools designed to help projects build communities.
1inch will offer $5,000 of API access through its Custom Plan, which operates on one of the most widely used swap layers in decentralised finance. Cryptic is contributing a further $5,000 marketing and growth package.
The hosts – Inspira Labs, Yellow and Cicada – will collectively provide $60,000 in market-making, advisory, acceleration and go-to-market support.
The combined package is intended to give founders access to resources at the point they need them, rather than leaving them to find and fund each service separately. The organisers say retaining capital for other business requirements is a central part of the model.
Eight judges have been confirmed for the second edition, with more names expected before the event.
They are Ian Yeung, Associate Director of Investment & Strategic Partnership at Animoca Brands; Roman Evdokimov, Venture Partner at Contribution Capital; Ivan Li, Founding Partner at Comma3 Ventures; Chloe Wang, Investment Director, Portfolio Manager and PR Director at Fenbushi Capital; Aleksandr Nechaev, a Partner at Funders VC; Tadas Ramonas, an Analyst at Zee Prime Capital; Dr. David An, Managing Partner at Dracoon Ventures and Co-Founder of The Provocation Lab; and Rene, CEO of Moonhill Capital.
Yeung’s work at Animoca Brands covers more than 600 portfolio companies across Web3 gaming, digital property rights and consumer applications. Evdokimov invests $250,000 to $500,000 in areas including DeFi, Ethereum scaling, privacy and DePIN, with a stated 30-day decision period.
Li has worked in early-stage crypto since 2017 across Taipei, Singapore and San Francisco. Comma3 Ventures has more than 50 portfolio companies and was an early investor in Polygon and Klaytn.
Wang works for Fenbushi Capital, described as Asia’s first blockchain-dedicated fund, founded in 2015, with Circle, ConsenSys and CoinList among its investments.
Nechaev is part of Funders VC, a $20m asset-management firm operating across venture capital and liquid DeFi. Ramonas works for Gibraltar-based Zee Prime Capital, which has made more than 100 early-stage investments and publishes its research openly, often before an emerging category has been formally defined.
Dr. An has more than 25 years of experience in artificial intelligence, Web3 and venture capital, including leadership positions at Binance, Greenfield Capital and T-Venture. His focus includes AI strategy, product positioning and scalable growth.
Rene has 18 years of corporate leadership experience at Red Bull and Unilever, together with more than a decade of involvement in Web3 and crypto investing. His assessment areas include operational execution, scaling and growth plans.
Every judge will score every company independently using the same criteria. No start-up will be assigned to only one reviewer; the eight teams will each be assessed by the full eight-person panel.
The committee will decide which founders receive the prize package, with the organisers describing the process as central to the event’s integrity and the prospects of the participating companies.
The format was created after Inspira Labs, Yellow and Cicada repeatedly encountered early-stage businesses with functioning products but weak commercial foundations. The issue was not necessarily a lack of engineering ability, but uncertainty over scaling, distribution, fundraising and market direction.
Some founders had not yet confronted those questions. Others understood what they lacked but could not easily reach people with relevant experience. A further group had already dealt with those challenges but found that their plans had become outdated as the market changed.
The organisers say the necessary advice is available across the industry, but is usually divided between different conversations covering investment, blockchain selection, liquidity, security and distribution. In the traditional process, a founder may need months of individual introductions before assembling a complete view.
The 10X Founders format brings those perspectives together in one session.
The first edition took place earlier this year and was treated by its organisers as a test. More than 150 teams applied, with 12 selected after assessment of their product, team, traction, token model and market fit.
Varys Capital, Funders VC, Starknet Foundation, Magnus Capital, Coinsilium and Draper Associates formed the judging panel. They assessed the entries independently and selected Backyard Finance as the winner from a $125,000 pool.
More than 7,000 people watched the first event live. The organisers say the longer-term results were more significant than the viewing figures, with judges contacting founders directly, written scorecards informing product decisions and unsuccessful teams securing partnerships that began during the session.
The first event also prompted a change in the prize structure. A cash-heavy reward assumes that the winning company is ready to deploy the money immediately, whereas infrastructure and specialist services can retain value even if a team’s timing changes.
Every participating company will now be assessed against the same criteria by the full panel and will receive the evaluation in writing. The organisers say this type of feedback can otherwise take months of cold outreach to obtain.
The first edition also showed that 12 pitches were too many for judges to assess with full attention in one session. In response, v2.0 has a larger support pool, a broader group of co-hosts and only eight places on stage.
The new Anchor Partner role is intended to bring blockchain selection into the assessment process. The organisers argue that choosing a chain can affect a project’s economics, access to foundation support and distribution reach for years, but is often treated mainly as a branding decision.
Sonic will review applications alongside the judging panel and support teams it considers ready, while founders are still deciding where to deploy rather than after they have committed to a network.
The wider partner group covers infrastructure, DeFi, security, media and growth. Campaign distribution will run through Cointelegraph, CoinMarketCap, CryptoRank, Incrypted and NS3.
Applications exceeded 100 within four days of opening, according to the organisers. They say the response was entirely organic, supported by banner placements on CryptoRank and Incrypted and promotion from CoinMarketCap, Sonic, Injective and all participating parties during the first 48 hours.
The hosts are seeking founders with a working product or demonstrated traction who are planning a token generation event within the next three to six months. Applicants must also be prepared to defend their work in front of active investors.
The organisers say each team will have seven minutes to pitch. The event link is luma.com/mie9hpvt.
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