ETC Labs Announces Cohort III, Blockchain for Impact Startups
Since 2018, we’ve been dedicated to providing technical support, project management, and funding for blockchain and digital asset startups through the Ethereum Classic Labs Accelerator and ETC Core development team. With the success of Cohorts I and II, accelerating companies such as OS City, Second State, Button Wallet, and more, we are excited to announce Cohort III. With a focus on blockchain for impact and startups that support social, and economic issues, we’ve committed to supporting 50% female founders and proudly introduce Pngme, Prescrypto, and OpenRelay!
Pngme supports financial inclusion in emerging markets with a unified financial data API and developer framework — empowering the next wave of developers and financial institutions to build products quickly and better serve their customers. Led by Cate Rung and Brendan Playford, Pngme sets out to close the $5.2 trillion finance gap affecting roughly 200 million Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprise (MSME) by providing data pipelines, scalable API architecture, and a suite of developer tools to banks, microfinance banks, fintech, and mobile money operators. These products will enable financial institutions to access a single source of truth on new or existing customers and provide financial services to those currently underserved or unbanked.
Revolutionizing the world of health care with blockchain technology, one digital prescription at a time is, Prescrypto. Previously awarded the 2019 Blockchain Impact Award from Newsweek, Prescypto provides a blockchain-based infrastructure to collect prescribing information, which is then securely routed to pharmacies and provides a history of medications for each patient. As demoed at TechCrunch Startup Battlefield LatAm, its RexChain decentralized protocol, an interoperable trusted mechanism guarantees the integrity and traceability of each prescription and safeguards the patient’s information while automating the process to provide a speedy, more simplistic and improved way for both consumers and medical providers to get their prescription. With more than 3,500 doctors and 192,000 patients in its network, Prescrypto has transacted over 300,000 prescriptions, averaging 12,000 prescriptions per month.
OpenRelay, the team behind Rivet is a leading provider of web3 infrastructure that delivers high-performance blockchain tooling to the Ethereum Classic developer ecosystem. With “pay-as-you-go” developer tools focused on a decentralized economy, OpenRelay supports some of the key founding goals of the ETC Labs accelerator. Through Rivet, they are laying the necessary groundwork that fuels decentralization and developing open-source software and standards that enable people to build on top of each other’s work. We’re excited to work with Open Relay, and their Rivet program, to have more node infrastructure service for the Ethereum Classic community. The team is not only immersed in the blockchain ecosystem, but it’s inclusive in that their solutions are affordable for every developer.
In addition to our accelerator, we also provide strategic grants to select projects that address, solve, and support fundamental challenges in blockchain and promote cross-chain collaboration. We’re always looking for projects in financial inclusions, tooling and infrastructure, and social impact sectors. With recent donations to organizations such as UNICEF, backed by Digital Finance Group, “we are committed to supporting their diverse array of entrepreneurs and companies who are working to realize the intent of blockchain to bring meaningful economic and social impact,” said James Wo, Founder, and Chairman of ETC Labs.
Once inducted, startups will receive technical support and have direct access to our ETC Core developer team, leaders in the Ethereum Classic and blockchain community who build and maintain tools in the Ethereum Classic protocol. Since 2018, the ETC Core development team has created several vital tools and resources including the EVM-LLVM, which allows developers to write smart contracts in a wide variety of programming languages; OpenRPC, a specification for API’s; and Expedition, a multi-network block explorer that receives an average of 1 Million requests per month. Most recently, they have also completed three hard forks in the past year alone including Agharta, Atlantis, and Phoenix. See their Q1, Q2 update and most recent projects, here.
Additionally, we provide custom support for each team to deliver concrete features, benefits, and infrastructure for the ETC and ETH blockchain communities. Through check-ins and introductions to our widely known and respected partners, startups will be able to tap into our network of mentors from Whiteblock, Unbank Ventures, Chainsafe, North Block Capital, Level Ventures and more; while receiving discounts with our service partners such as AWS, Digital Ocean, Equa, IBM, UNICEF, Kairon Labs.
Accelerator applications are accepted on a rolling-basis. To learn more about the ETC Labs accelerator program and apply click, here.
About ETC Labs
The mission of ETC Labs is to build relevant, accessible, and high-quality technology, and to use that technology to create communities of value in a mature and regulated ecosystem. The ultimate goal is to fulfill the promise of blockchain to improve people’s lives using Ethereum Classic, one of the world’s major public blockchains. The ETC Labs team of experts also fosters partnerships with organizations and institutions in order to address fundamental challenges in developing and deploying this innovative technology. We fulfill the mission in three ways: the ETC Labs Accelerator, which invests in up to 25 blockchain projects annually that contribute to sustaining a robust ecosystem; strategic investments in innovative projects focused on economic and social development; and the Core Team, a team of experts and developers who maintain the Ethereum Classic blockchain and build key applications, solutions, and tools. For more information visit, https://etclabs.org/.
For press inquiries contact, kelsey.r@etclabs.org
