MerkleBot graduated from Filecoin Techstars 22
MerkleBot is a data platform that connects robotics with Web3 markets to help enterprises drive cost reduction and power new business models. We just graduated from Filecoin Techstars 22’ accelerator program and decided to share our thoughts while they are still fresh.
What brought you to Techstars and what were you expecting from the program?
At MerkleBot we consider ourselves to be a deep tech startup. We work to extend the capabilities of robotics and give them economic tools to achieve cost reductions or drive additional revenue for equipment utilization. And we have strong technical capabilities in our team, ranging from robotics scientists with over 50 publications in academic journals to early blockchain adopter who was one of the first 100 miners in Ethereum. We started with academic research on the intersection of these two topics. And we have achieved interesting early traction, but it felt that we needed to get a broader reach and get much more feedback. Our primary goal was to collect more feedback, test our technology and iterate much faster.
Did you achieve the goals you set?
We did because the whole program starts with two weeks of mentor sessions. Sometimes they’re called “mentor madness”. This is two weeks packed with meetings where you can talk to experts from a wide range of different industries. And this allowed us to get feedback on what we’re doing from literally every industry we can potentially target. This was tremendously valuable and we continue to get intros from those meetings even now. We’ve built great relationships with some of the mentors and we even started pilot negotiations with a manufacturing client. We are exploring the benefits of our data capture process for improving the operational efficiency of equipment and simplifying audits and certification process.
Through the mentor sessions, we understand the market requirements much better now. Our potential clients clearly understand the need for an extremely secure way to store data and have granular control over access to their network. During this program, we built authorization and equipment access capability that uses public blockchain cryptography and infrastructure to identify and open access to equipment securely. We also fully implemented Filecoin Network which gives us the benefit of secure, long-term, and affordable cloud data storage that saves costs for our clients when they need to archive equipment data for long periods of time.
For example, one of the major requirements that robotics and equipment operators in general always stress is the security aspect of the software. In industries like manufacturing clients are very concerned about trade secrets, physical security of the equipment, and, most importantly, of people within the factory. This is a very reasonable and obviously a very natural concern. Having access to Filecoin Network, which has cryptographic proofs of data storage that guarantee that your data will be stored in a decentralized and resilient network and also much more affordable way compared to traditional cloud providers. This is also a significant benefit to industrial and supply chain clients whose margins are tightly controlled and requirements for data storage can be multiyear or even decades (for example in the automotive industry).
What was the most valuable takeaway from the program?
The value of Techstars is in the diversity of opinions. I was able to collect different perspectives on what I’m doing and had to boil it down into actionable insights myself. And you truly experience the give first mentality. It is the motto and the hashtag of Techstars and I was very impressed by how the whole Techstars network embraces it. Throughout the mentor sessions and my engagements with the Techstars community in general, everybody was willing to help you, offer insights from their experience or offer introductions to their network to help you find clients and partners. That’s very important for a startup when early on you can easily get support on aspects of the company that you haven’t built yet :)
Was there something valuable you learned from interactions with other co-founders and have you met anybody who impacted you?
I learned something new from each of the founders in our cohort and it was a tremendously valuable experience. It was very helpful to be able to just exchange ideas on how to manage early-stage startups, especially when we all faced similar challenges in the middle of the program when the crypto market crashed. This affected all of our startups and it was invaluable to be able to brainstorm ideas and exchange best practices on how to adjust. We were able to exchange ideas on what worked and didn’t work, tips and tricks on how to educate people on our technology, and just have emotional support for each other. I highly recommend you check out what our cohort is building because these are some of the most amazing companies I’ve seen:
Bailport — multi-currency e-wallet using blockchain to facilitate low-cost payments to Africa.
Ecko — Ecko is a collaboration and fan engagement platform that enables artists to easily plan, create, and promote remarkable NFT campaigns.
Functionland — Creating the first Blockchain Attached Storage (BAS) hardware, Box and Fula Protocol to incentivize users and developers creating a free and secure internet for everyone.
Haiphen — Blockchain-enabled threat detection for enterprise cybersecurity.
MetaPals — Virtual companions that love to grow, and you’ll grow to love.
Mint State Labs — Entertainment and gaming technology provider that helps creators easily build, distribute, and market blockchain-powered experiences.
Peeranha — Decentralized question & answer platform that rewards users for their contributions in crypto.
The Bloop Browser — Web3 browser that uncovers and visually displays paths across the web for internet users to share with their community.
SharpShark — Copyright issuance and protection platform that seamlessly certifies and protects content originality.
StaTwig — Supply chain visibility solution that allows you to tokenize and track products in a multi-stakeholder supply chain network.
TransCrypts — Corporate data verification platform that automates the issuance of employment and income verification documents and ensures a source of truth with the blockchain.
What events and workshops during the program were the most memorable?
All the workshops were extremely interesting and useful, but we are building in different industries so some were more useful for some startups, some were for others. I think universally, workshops on regulation and compliance were extremely valuable for all of our companies because we are building in a space that is just forming up. Having access to the leading legal experience was extremely valuable.
I particularly liked engagements with partners ranging from Stripe to Microsoft who are very interested in web3 technologies and looking for ways to help founders.
And obviously, the founder stories were extremely insightful because it was so interesting to learn the stories of founders that went through Techstars before us, what worked for them and what experiences they went through.
Coming out of Techstars, what are you planning to do next?
We have three key areas of focus: fundraising, customer discovery, and technology partnerships. On the fundraising side, we already started to close our first angel checks. And it is really helpful to have a commitment for investments from Protocol Labs as a part of this program.
On the customer discovery side, this program helped us start a pilot negotiation with a manufacturing client. We also continue to talk to many potential partners and clients from different industries, ranging from logistics to manufacturing obviously, to some unexpected ones like gaming where we can connect physical experiences to digital games and metaverses. Having this opportunity to explore a wide range of industries and to connect with people from all walks of life allows us to iterate much faster through product ideas and move quicker.
With technology partnerships, we connected with many of the mentors and partners of the Filecoin Network, learned precise procedures, and got technical advice on how to implement it better. We also continue participating actively in the Polkadot ecosystem.
Lastly, we prepared this demo to show capabilities of our platform through an easy and engaging interaction with Boston Dynamics Spot robodog in our lab:
It will take about 10 minutes and requires a desktop (no tablets or mobile).
