Fungies wins the CVC23 Startup Competition!

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On Thursday, June 1st, the CV VC and CV Labs team organized the CVC23 Startup Competition together with the Crypto Valley Association. 

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Organized during the Crypto Valley Conference 2023, the competition gave a select group of ten cutting-edge blockchain projects the opportunity to pitch in front of an investor audience. Besides gaining recognition and exposure for their startups, the contestants connected with investors and were in the run to win exciting prizes such as soft commitments from various VCs, mentorship hours, co-working access, and more.

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Winners were selected by an expert jury of blockchain VCs, including Bastian Wetzel (CV VC), Luc Jodet (Xange), Dominic Briggs (Blockwall), Nathalie Yang (LBankLabs), Maxime Bucaille (Draper VC), and Benedek Orban (Crypto Valley Association). 

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Meet the startups

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ThorWallet

The Revolut app of DeFi, making cross-chain swaps easy. THORWallet is the first non-custodial mobile app that offers all the financial services a person needs based on DeFi.

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ThorWallet’s Marcel Harmann took the stage to present the project. During his pitch, Marcel announced the launch of ThorWallet VISA, in collaboration with Fiat24, adding Visa Debit Card & Swiss Bank Accounts to the platform. He was asked some challenging questions about the project’s current growth plan and thoughts on the Thor blockchain.

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Enkifi‍

Empowering financial institutions with Web3 banking infrastructure. Enkifi is an embedded finance solution that seamlessly bridges traditional finance with web3 through its suite of APIs.

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Enkifi’s Marc Meyer was questioned by the jury about how they will tackle the already crowded tokenization industry. His answer - by having a clear use case and targeting more niche markets usch as the TradeFi industry. The jury also grilled Marc on Enkifi’s legal setup and the blockchain its currently using (Polygon).

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Fungies‍

The Shopify of gaming. Fungies offers Web3 compatible, no-code storefronts for game studios or private servers, making it easier than ever to create a marketplace for your community.

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Fungies’ Duke Vu started off his pitch by asking who in the audience was into gaming, which definitely caught everyone’s attention! The jury asked about his go-to-market strategy, to which Duke replied that they are using both inbound and outbound marketing tactics. He was also asked about why game developers can’t just code their own marketplace, to which he explained that Fungies saves coders months of work and over $100K in costs.

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Kuutamo‍

An infrastructure provider for running best-in-class, enterprise-grade, self-hosted nodes. With Kuutamo's open source code, you can deploy your own node, or subscribe to a kuutamo SRE-managed node where the deployment, monitoring and management is taken care of by the Kuutamo team. 

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Kuutamo’s Laurence Lewandowska was asked why users should switch to Kuutamo when they can custom-buid and run their own dev nodes. Laurence explained that, besides Kuutamo being fully transparent and auditable, their monitoring and management services save companies costs by not having to hire two full-time in-house developers.

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Deepsquare‍

Decentralized compute power in one click. DeepSquare has developed a platform that aggregates distributed High Performance Computing (HPC) resources into a meta-supercomputer, simplifying access to HPC without the need for hardware optimization. 

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Deepsquare’s Maja Kehic explained that DeepSquare transforms the HPC landscape by making it both easily accessible and cost-effective.

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CrySP‍

CrySP (Crypto Structured Products) is building a transparent and compliant on-chain infrastructure for crypto structured products. Paul Belissont & Prangchira Kewcgaroenwong highlighted the enormous amount of untapped market potential in the crypto structured products space.

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Helix‍

Bringing true ownership and full transparency to DeFi trading. The Helix Team has redrawn the blueprint of a crypto exchange - from custody, to how blockchains transact with each other, to how efficient markets are created. Helix’ Gorazd Ocvirk Vakanjac pitched to the audience how Helix is a game changer in crypto trading infrastructure.

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Pravica‍

Peer-to-peer web3.0 messaging and value transfer infrastructure. Pravica has developed an unparalleled web3 messaging and value transfer infrastructure that prioritizes privacy and security above all else.

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Pravica’s Mohamed Abdou highlighted the privacy breaches in previous Web2 and Web2.5 messaging infrastructures and explained how blockchain can help you own your communication data. The jury questioned Mohamed about how he will get the masses to use his platform, which, according to Mohamed, is just a matter of time. Once we realise how our data is currently being compromised, users will want to make the switch to his platform.

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LAOS‍

Bringing true ownership of living assets into the mainstream. LAOS introduces the concept of ‘bridgeless’ NFT minting and evolution – permitting truly decentralized, dynamic NFTs. LAOS will pioneer a paradigm shift in NFT utility: from scarcity and speculation, to abundance and User-Generated-Value.

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LAOS’ Alun Evans explained the concept of living assets to the audience and explained its use cases in our modern-day world. The judges seemed excited about the project but showed their concerns regarding LAOS’ expansion plan involving a parachain. When asked what their plan B was if they didn’t maange to acquire a parachain, Alun explained that they will continue with the Web2 application Freeverse that they currently run.

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Swalo‍

The world's first DeFi service with a natural language chatting interface. Swalo was inspired by the complexity of tools available for developers to manage transactions, and aims to be a Web3 shortcut tool for non-engineer users. By turning chat GPT into a DeFi chatbot, the project is revolutionizing the way people navigate DeFi.

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The Korean founders were asked about their focus on functions rather than SDK, as well as their exit strategy for VCs. How will their investors earn from the Swalo project once they make an exit? The team explained that they are still working on their exact strategy and emphasized that they are open to feedback from investors.

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And the award goes to …

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After a riveting afternoon of startup pitches and a thorough deliberation by our panel of judges, the awards were distributed amongst the teams. Besides awarding a top three, the conference also featured two special awards, namely the People’s Choice Award (selected by the audience), as well as the Rising Star Award (an early-stage startup with an outstanding performing).

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First place goes to… Fungies! 

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Second place goes to… LAOS!

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Third place goes to… Swalo!

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The People’s Choice Award goes to… ThorWallet! 

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The Rising Star Award goes to… Helix!

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A huge congratulations to all of the winning teams. We look forward to following the progress of all participating startups in the next few years!

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