Crypto collective Orange DAO has selected NEAR protocol as its preferred partner to help build Web3 startups.
Orange DAO is a collective of more than 1,000 alumni of Silicon Valley accelerator Y Combinator which are dedicated to backing the most promising crypto startups.
It helps startups apply to and be accepted into Y Combinator, provide them with pre- and post-YC funding, while helping mentor their leadership and recruit talent, and acquire customers.
YC has backed over 3,300 companies for a combined valuation of $600 billion, including Airbnb, Stripe, Dropbox, Coinbase, Opensea, Twitch and Reddit.
The NEAR Foundation is a Swiss non-profit that oversees the governance and development of the NEAR protocol, a blockchain designed to be fast, secure and scalable. To date, the foundation has allocated over $45m to new projects.
Orange DAO will also invest $15 million to support founders building on NEAR.
As one of the world’s most famous startup accelerators, YC has developed some of the fastest-growing and most valuable brands. It has also nurtured some of the tech world’s biggest talents, including NEAR co-founder and YC alumnus Alexander Skidanov.
“We are thrilled to have been selected and voted upon by some of the brightest minds in the world as the preferred layer1 chain on which Orange DAO members will want to build,” said Marieke Flament, CEO of the NEAR Foundation.
“We know that community-driven innovation benefits everyone, and this partnership is simply another example of our mission in practice.”
Orange DAO operates as a decentralised autonomous organisation, using blockchain tech to help multiple users make collective decisions.
The partnership comes amid a Web3 gold rush, as financial leaders from around the world aim to make sense of where the next chapter of the internet is heading. Today’s value of all cryptocurrencies is around $2.3 trillion, with venture capitalists playing a significant role in driving the crypto boom. In 2021, VC funds invested $27 billion into crypto-related projects in 2021, more than in the previous ten years combined.
Unlike other networks, NEAR gives software developers easy access to create new crypto applications, from non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to decentralised finance products – as well as launching new business models and consumer products.