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The Street
The Street
Business
Dan Weil

These Startups May Become the Next Expedia or PayPal

Are you someone who likes to invest in technology-stock IPOs or in tech stocks shortly after their IPOs? If so, you might take a look at CoworkingCafe’s list of the top 10 tech startups.

 CoworkingCafe is an online browsing and booking site for coworking spaces.

The list includes the companies that started this year and have garnered the most preseed and seed investments. 

But be careful: Six of the companies focus on cryptocurrencies. And that volatile industry has proved to provide plenty of opportunities for enormous losses, as you know.

In any case, preseed is “the earliest stage of funding, focusing on early-stage product development,” the report said. “It prepares the company to maximize its future fundraising potential by assembling a core team and building and testing a product”

Investors "provide the necessary capital to get the startup running, in exchange for equity,” the report said.

Meanwhile, “companies in the seed-funding stage are expected to have proven product viability, a validated value proposition, as well as a certain degree of traction in the market,” the report said.

“Seed funding is the first official round of formal investing that follows preseed funding but precedes funding Series A, B and C.”

The Top 5 Companies for Preseed Investments

Iluma. Industry: cryptocurrency, software, webOS. Total funding: $5.5 million. The company “promises to create autonomous solutions to onboard, manage, support and engage decentralized autonomous organizations,” CoworkingCafé said in its report. That’s “a new, blockchain-based iteration of the [Internet].”

Fun. Industry: blockchain, web development. Total funding: $3.9 million. Fun hopes to leverage new blockchain technology to build cross-chained wallet infrastructure. Its lead investor is JAM Fund, a venture capital firm known for backing companies with vision and an ambition to disrupt, the report said.

Airstack. Industry: blockchain, developer [application programing interface]. Total funding: $3.8 million. The company has received funding from 21 investors. “This promising startup is on a mission to enable the best API connections across blockchain networks and make web3 data public, easily browsable and consumable,” CoworkingCafe said.

Libristrip. Industry: artificial intelligence, information technology, software, travel. Total funding: $3.1 million. The company’s funding “proves that the limited global mobility during the past few years did little to diminish the optimism around travel apps,” CoworkingCafe said. “The Libristrip app enables users to search, book, and manage their trip, as well as plan and reserve activities.”

Kalder. Industry: apps, cryptocurrency, digital marketing. Total funding: $3 million. The company is a web3 platform that is “set to help brands drive engagement, onboard new users and reward loyal ones,” the report said. “With the product itself still in the pipeline, in this initial phase Kalder is building a waitlist for early adopters.” The company drew 10 investors in preseed funding.

The Top Five Companies for Seed Investments

Trust Machines. Industry: bitcoin, blockchain. Total funding: $150 million. The funding came from seven investors. “Trust Machine’s vision to build the largest ecosystem of bitcoin applications … presents great potential and seems to have gained a significant amount of trust among business investors in a short period of time,” the report said.

Ascertain. Industry: artificial intelligence, healthcare, medical. Total funding: $100 million. “The company provides a one-of-a-kind solution for the health-care system’s most pressing quality, equity and cost problems,” the report said. “Their main focus is to help launch AI-based health technology companies that would ultimately improve the quality of care and make it more accessible to the public.”

Co:Create. Industry: bitcoin, cryptocurrency. Total funding: $25 million. It received funding from seven investors in October, including famed venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. “What’s unique about Co:Create is that the company focuses on helping web3 brands and communities to develop and leverage native tokens,” the report said.

CreatorDAO. Industry: cryptocurrency, financial services, financial technology. Total funding: $20 million. It had 28 investors this year, including a subsidiary of Andreessen Horowitz. “CreatorDAO’s ultimate goal is to empower content creators, enable them to learn from experts and further their careers,” the report said. “Established creators like Paris Hilton and The Chainsmokers are already backing up this promising startup’s growth.”

Ethernal Labs. Industry: 3D technology, blockchain, ethereum. Total funding: $20 million. Its investors include former Alphabet CEO Eric Schmidt. “Ethernal Labs is even dipping its toes into the metaverse,” the report said. 

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