Meet five offbeat startups in a16z crypto’s spring accelerator programme

New crypto projects are popping up in 2024.

Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto arm announced 25 early-stage startups that will participate in its Spring 2024 Crypto Startup Accelerator programme.

Over 10 weeks, the programme will arm the new founders with guidance and resources from the a16z crypto team, “speeding up their path to product-market fit and setting them up for long-term growth.”

But some of them aren’t very crypto-specific at all. The startups range from a blockchain investment bank to a decentralised version of SkipTheDishes.

A16z crypto injected $128 million across two crypto projects — the restocking project EigenLayer and web3 privacy project Espresso Systems — in the first quarter of the year, according to DefiLlama.

Here are five of the most off-piste crypto a16z-backed ventures coming to market.

AminoChain

AminoChain is a “bio-sample marketplace” that connects labs and clinical sites with biopharma companies.

The company will allow labs and medical institutions to share information with stakeholders and facilitate specimen transactions.

“AminoChain participants can track and trace where their samples go and how they are used in scientific research and development,” the company wrote in an X post.

Collar Protocol

Collar seeks to build “the investment bank of the future.”

The protocol will allow retail investors to enter concentrated positions while avoiding liquidation — an arrangement usually reserved for high-net-worth individuals at traditional investment banks.

Collar says it plans to develop additional products with traditionally high barriers to entry to retail investors.

Nosh

Nosh is a Colorado-based, locally-owned “delivery service collective.”

The company operates similarly to delivery services such as SkipTheDishes or Uber Eats, except that it is restaurant-owned and driven by blockchain technology.

“Nosh was born out of restaurant owners coming together to create an alternative to the predatory practices of big-tech food delivery businesses,” according to the company’s website.

Nosh lists 218 restaurants across three cities in the state.

Playmint

Playmint is a UK-based blockchain gaming company.

Its principal project, Downstream, is an on-chain massively multiplayer online game that allows users to build their own games within the game.

The project will focus on builders, player engagement, and eventual monetisation, according to the company.

Scrypted

Artificial intelligence-focused firm Scrypted is “building decentralised, self-owning, autonomous agents and games.”

The company’s website shows several projects, including AI-generated web3 games and AI-assisted development platforms.

Scrypted says it has “all the tools in hand to create Autonomous Virtual Beings,” a concept outlined by CEO Tim Cotten in a blog post which seeks to create AI entities that “own themselves.”

Blockchain users will be able to invest in AVBs and play online games with them as if they were human players, according to Cotten.

Tyler Pearson is a markets correspondent at DL News. Got a tip? Email him at ty@dlnews.com.