First ao Ventures Cohort Presents at Demo Day
Community Labs announced the launch of its first incubator program, ao Ventures, on April 11, 2024. This initiative aims to empower builders within the Arweave ecosystem to elevate their projects and secure funding. On July 12th, the culmination of months of hard work was showcased during the highly anticipated Demo Day, where 11 exceptional projects from the first cohort presented their progress and achievements.
The Vision Behind ao Ventures
ao Ventures represents a significant opportunity for builders and developers in the Arweave ecosystem. Whether participants are starting with a novel idea or looking to scale an existing project, ao Ventures is tailored to amplify their efforts. The program and its events were open to everyone, and participants were invited to submit their projects for the opportunity to be selected for Demo Day.
Community Labs is enthusiastic about the AO and Arweave stack because it represents the first architecture designed to support the development of any application, in any programming language, on the first horizontally scalable, decentralized supercomputer. This architecture excels without compromising on performance, scalability, or developer experience.
Journey to Demo Day
The program commenced with a kickoff on April 23rd, with the announcement of $35 million investor-committed capital. Over the course of the program, participants engaged in a series of events designed to hone their skills and prepare their projects for success. The journey included 11 keynotes covering a wide range of topics, from business development to investor relations, with a strong focus on the founder's journey. There were four technical workshops that provided in-depth technical insights and guidance focused on Arweave and AO development. Participants also received engineering mentorship from Community Labs team members and pre-Demo Day design support from Pace Studio to ensure their projects were presentation-ready. The program attracted over 30 project submissions to demo day, a testament to its broad appeal and the quality of the ideas it attracted.
Demo Day Projects:
0rbit
0rbit is a decentralized Oracle Network revolutionizing real-world data access. By bridging the gap between the real world and blockchain, it enables diverse data integration without trust assumptions. 0rbit addresses the challenge of accessing external data within the Arweave ecosystem, providing practical and sustainable solutions for various data types. Its applications span social apps, DeFi, AI agents, and more, empowering users with data-rich possibilities and revolutionizing oracles on Arweave.
Outcome
Outcome leverages autonomous agents to revolutionize prediction markets on AO. By using trustless market resolution, it allows users to develop prediction agents that operate on real-time data. This approach addresses issues in current prediction markets, such as lack of a shared goal and high costs of expert attention. Outcome aims to create more accurate predictive models and offers financial incentives for truth-seeking behavior, setting a new standard in prediction markets.
Astro
Astro introduces an over-collateralized stablecoin built on AO, providing a stable medium of exchange and driving liquidity for future DeFi applications within the Arweave ecosystem. Astro addresses the lack of a stable currency, the inaccessibility of asset value within the ecosystem, and the need for a stable foundation for DeFi growth. USDA, the stablecoin by Astro, ensures seamless transactions, unlocks AR value, and acts as a foundational 'money lego' for AO DeFi, supporting the ecosystem's evolving needs.
Liteseed
Liteseed offers a new way for data to make its way onto Arweave, helping to decentralize data bundling processes. As network usage increases, the need for efficient data bundles and bundlers grows. Liteseed is the first decentralized solution for creating bundles, allowing multiple transactions to be combined into single transactions, thus reducing costs and improving scalability for Arweave.
AFTR
AFTR provides robust solutions for asset custody within the AO ecosystem, leveraging programmable wallets to handle events autonomously. AFTR's multi-sig smart contract, now migrated to AO, is essential for on-chain fund management as liquidity increases.
Tau Oracle
Tau Oracle serves private data to on-chain processes, addressing data privacy concerns on public blockchains. As a zero-knowledge proof privacy layer for AO and Arweave, Tau Oracle opens new use cases for blockchain applications and enterprise customers. By ensuring data privacy, Tau Oracle broadens the scope of blockchain applications, facilitating real-world data use cases while maintaining privacy and security.
LiquidOps
LiquidOps is a lending protocol essential for any liquid economy, enabling new types of borrowers and lenders within AO. The project developed an MVP in under three weeks, showcasing the rapid innovation within AO. LiquidOps allows fully on-chain autonomous agents to access money markets and bootstrap liquidity, positioning itself as a critical liquidity layer within the AO ecosystem.
Dstor
Dstor is a low-code platform for blockchain search and on-chain AI tooling, addressing the need for decentralized search and personalized recommendations. It brings advanced search capabilities to Arweave without relying on off-chain solutions. By solving the challenge of finding specific content stored on Arweave, Dstor enables fully decentralized applications, ensuring greater security, transparency, and efficiency for Web3 developers.
Fractopus
Fractopus addresses connectivity and fragmentation issues on the web, providing clear incentives for content creators to share revenue and exposure. It integrates with Web3 applications to add a traceable economic layer for attribution, creating a more equitable and interconnected digital ecosystem. By enabling peer-to-peer revenue sharing, Fractopus aims to reshape the permaweb into a more collaborative and fair platform for content creators.
Apus Network
Apus Network offers a decentralized GPU network for AI on AO, revolutionizing AI development while ensuring trustless and scalable infrastructure. It addresses issues with traditional and Web3 GPU networks, such as dependency on central authorities and lack of verifiable AI inference results. Apus Network ensures execution integrity, scalability, and cost efficiency, providing a robust foundation for AI development within the AO ecosystem.
Onairos
Onairos unifies user data across applications into a digital persona controlled by the user, enabling economic rewards and enhanced user experiences. It addresses unethical practices on the web, such as walled gardens and data silos, by giving users control over their data. Onairos leverages Arweave and AO to create immutable and secure digital personas, envisioning a more ethical web where user data serves the user, not the companies.
Looking Ahead
Community Labs is focused on the future of ao Ventures and its role in fostering innovation within the Arweave community. The success of Demo Day highlights the hard work and dedication of all participants and sets the stage for the first generation of AO-native projects. Community Labs extends its gratitude to all who supported and participated in ao Ventures and looks forward to continued collaboration and growth.
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