ZILHive, the ecosystem growth arm of high-performance blockchain platform Zilliqa has launched a strategic annual investment fund of up to US$5 million for 15 promising companies building on the Zilliqa platform. This investment will be funnelled through two new initiatives in the ZILHive ecosystem — ZILHive Incubator and ZILHive Ventures. These two initiatives serve to supplement the US$5 million already previously committed to grants, accelerator, and education initiatives in 2018.
To bolster ecosystem growth, ZILHive will essentially consist of five key initiatives: ZILHive Incubator, ZILHive Accelerator, ZILHive Ventures, ZILHive Grants, and ZILHive Education. Through these initiatives, ZILHive will be able to achieve three key objectives: developing a ready pool of technical talent to recruit from; providing venture-building programmes to assist entrepreneurs at different stages of maturity; and funding the most promising ideas. The two new pillars of Incubator and Ventures will help ZILHive realise these objectives, making it a more holistic, effective and end-to-end programme that benefits the entrepreneurs, the Zilliqa economy and in effect, ZIL token holders in 2021.
Han Wen Chua, Senior Vice President of Ecosystem Development at Zilliqa, said: “ZILHive has always had big ambitions: to drive more open and inclusive finance and commerce gateways for communities and companies worldwide, and power the Web 3.0 era. We have now doubled our investment into high-potential startups and initiatives in service this goal: guiding entrepreneurs from right from the drawing board, seeding and nurturing them to become not merely a blockchain success story, but provide truly useful applications for people.”
Aimed at budding tech talent and entrepreneurs, the ZILHive Incubator is a 14-week programme that looks to match the best developers and industry professionals as they build innovative blockchain solutions on the Zilliqa protocol. The ZILHive Incubator is estimated to run from 4 May 2021 to 10 August 2021. Applications are currently open until 26 April 2021.
The incubator will be tailored to the needs of both technical and non-technical participants which ensures that participants do not require prior experience with blockchain to get involved. Teams will develop their projects through mentorship sessions, masterclasses, and workshops. Outstanding participants will have the opportunity to showcase their projects to potential investors and industry partners at Zilliqa’s annual town hall event in August 2021.
To support more mature projects, ZILHive Ventures will look to focus on developing projects that are built using the Zilliqa protocol. The US$5M fund will invest between US$50,000 to US$500,000 into promising companies in exchange for equity, tokens, or a combination of both. The fund aims to invest in 15 companies annually from around the world. The best projects hoping to further scale and seeking growth capital for expansion will be referred to Zilliqa Capital, the recently launched central business and investment hub aimed at investing in decentralised and fintech solutions to grow Southeast Asia’s fintech and emerging tech ecosystem.
ZILHive’s new Incubator and Venture Fund bookends Zilliqa’s existing innovation lifecycle, offering holistic support to the next wave of global talent. ZILHive participants will be assisted from start to finish, from idea generation and business matching, technical and non-technical education, mentorship, capital support, to counsel on taking-to-market strategies, partnerships and business development.
About ZILHive
ZILHive is Zilliqa’s ecosystem growth arm which supports entrepreneurs and developers as they build their solutions on Zilliqa’s high-performance, high-security blockchain and smart contract platform. ZILHive comprises three pillars: Education, which focuses on upskilling professionals and students through customised blockchain courses developed in partnership with educational institutions; Grants, a funding programme which offers strategic, personalised guidance to early-stage start-ups; and Accelerator, an initiative that provides technical tutorship and mentorship to drive growth across the Zilliqa network. Enabled by this three-pronged ecosystem effort, ZILHive is driven by a mission to build a holistic global community of developer and entrepreneurial talent. To date, ZILHive has supported over 70 projects from over 20 countries.
For more information, visit: zilhive.org