Blog Article
Empowering Global DeFi Innovators: Recap of SCF Kickstart (Formerly Startup Camp)
Author
Anke Liu
Publishing date
SCF
DeFi
Projects
The SCF Kickstart (formerly Startup Camp), a quarterly 5-day bootcamp organized by the Stellar Development Foundation and DFS Lab, recently concluded its first cohort of 2023 with resounding success. The intensive program supported 30 emerging startups in Web3 to define their use case on Stellar and/or Soroban (Stellar's new native smart contracts platform, currently in preview release) as part of the Stellar Community Fund. By providing guidance and support, the bootcamp offers a valuable opportunity for teams to refine their ideas and develop innovative solutions within the Stellar and Soroban ecosystems.
Spanning two time zones, the bootcamp also boasted a remarkable lineup of 34 mentors, comprising experienced developers, industry veterans, and successful entrepreneurs. These mentors generously shared their expertise, guided participants through challenges, and imparted invaluable knowledge about launching and scaling successful startups.
Following the design sprints, a distributed selection panel evaluated the projects and selected the top ten finalists and three winners*. While all teams did a fantastic job, the following teams in particular exhibited great effort, innovation, and creativity during the bootcamp, while also developing projects with strong potential to impact the Stellar and Soroban ecosystems.
1st place: CashAbroad 🎉*
Winning the panel’s top choice with an award of $15,000 worth of XLM is CashAbroad, a cross-border payment platform for businesses in LATAM using Stellar and Soroban. Check out uils' SCF Founder Story here.
"We joined SCF Kickstart (formerly Startup Camp) to boost our company's creativity, develop a solution and test it with users in just 5 days. Our experience was amazing! During the bootcamp, we coded a lot and were thrilled with the support we received from the community using Stellar and Soroban smart contract platforms. The SDF team was awesome in helping us implement our ideas on Stellar and Soroban." - Ruth Gomez Hidalgo, CEO of CashAbroad.
2nd place: Ripe 🌟*
Coming in second with an award of $10,000 worth of XLM is Ripe, which provides off-ramps from crypto to eWallets using everyday methods of payments, starting with those in the Philippines. Check out Ripe's SCF Founder Story here.
“It was a challenge to get up to pace in the first 48 hours, but the speed of it all was a useful forcing function. Our mentor, very fortuitously, was the founder of a Stellar wallet, and he was very interested in incorporating the kind of functionality we were proposing.” - Sam Silver, COO of Ripe
3rd place: uils ✨*
A close third with an award of $5,000 worth of XLM is uils, a talented team building lending infrastructure that enables banks and fintechs to offer loans to mobility gig workers using driving history as a credit score. Check out uils' SCF Founder Story here.
“The SCF Kickstart (formerly Startup Camp) was an amazing opportunity to create a low-fi prototype and validate the idea with our users. We had amazing feedback! We submitted to the SCF and were recommended by the Stellar community to join the bootcamp as an instance to validate our project with mentors and users.” - Tomás Costanzo - Founder & CEO of Uils
To gain insights into each of the ten finalists’ journeys, we invite readers to explore the Founder Stories, written by the teams themselves: https://communityfund.stellar.org/projects#founderstories
Next steps for teams: Stellar Community Fund Awards
While the SCF Kickstart (formerly Startup Camp) marks an important milestone for the participating teams, their journey continues with an opportunity to apply for awards through the Stellar Community Fund. This program can help teams further develop and scale their projects to turn their bootcamp ideas into reality.
Interested in SCF Kickstart (formerly Startup Camp)? Learn more about the bootcamp here, and apply to be considered for the next cohort before August 1st!
*Disclaimer: The SCF Kickstart (formerly Startup Camp) winners and finalists (collectively, “SCF Finalists”) are selected based on set criteria and are assessed by a selection panel composed of employees of Stellar Development Foundation (“SDF”) and DFS Lab (“DFS Lab”), as well as community members selected by SDF and/or DFS Lab to participate on such selection panel (collectively, “Panel Members”). While the Panel Members have sought to evaluate SCF Finalists as part of the SCF Kickstart (formerly Startup Camp), none of SDF, DFS Lab, or the Panel Members makes any claims, promises, or guarantees about the accuracy, completeness, or adequacy of the submissions made by such SCF Finalists. No warranty of any kind, implied, expressed, or statutory, including but not limited to the warranties of non-infringement of third party rights, title, merchantability, or fitness for a particular purpose is given by SDF, DFS Lab, or any Panel Member. Reference to any specific commercial product, process, or service does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by SDF or DFS Lab. Nothing herein should be construed as financial, legal, or investment advice. If you choose to interact with any SCF Kickstart (formerly Startup Camp) Finalist, you should ensure you understand the technology, the assets, and that you are aware of the risks involved in such operations.
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