$3 Million in Seed Funding for Web3 Founders Announced By Necto Labs

Start building some cool sh*t 

If you’re a developer or entrepreneur, you’re no doubt curious (or possibly sick of hearing) about the wave of Web3 innovation that is taking over the internet.

Web3, also referred to as the decentralized web, is the next era of the internet. It rewires things on both an infrastructural and social level. It provides more autonomy and shared value for all online users - not just internet giants who rule the digital world.

The growth of the dWeb space over the past few years has been unimaginable. The decentralised applications (dapps) market is projected to reach $368.25 billion by 2027, while the Total Value Locked in decentralised finance has increased 7 times year-over-year, at once point surpassing $100 billion.

There are many builders, networks and ecosystems piecing the Web3 puzzle together. These projects are taking on the mammoth challenge of undoing decades of exploitative centralisation and corporatisation.

At Mysterium, we’ve spent years building a new protocol from scratch, powered by a decentralised peer-to-peer network on Ethereum and Polygon, made up of tens of thousands of nodes worldwide. (You can run a node yourself - join the network here.)

It’s infrastructure for this re-imagination of the web - a network powerful enough to act as a building block for developers and entrepreneurs all pioneering a more private and ethical internet.

But bringing this new web to life is a collective mission, so we invite you to join us.

We have open-sauce ingredients and infrastructure, so you can build new projects and…

Bring something new to the Web3 table with Necto Labs 🔺🧬

Necto Labs is a new open-source innovation lab driven by R&D, venture funding and strategic collaborations to build a better web for all.

Led by Mysterium, the Lab is dedicating $3 million in seed funding to developers and entrepreneurs who want to build encrypted and uncensorable products and services on the network.

And we know that being a developer and being an entrepreneur doesn’t always go hand in hand.

That’s why we’ve created a 12-week incubator program that you can also join.

Through the program, you get to work with an in-house team of technical mentors, product marketers, UX designers and business development consultants.

You can also tap into a network of industry experts and leading organizations, as well as a community of fellow Web3 builders.

Every project will automatically be considered for follow-on funding opportunities, so you can scale your idea beyond the seed stage.

Whether you have a brand new project that needs a go-to-market plan, or a well-developed idea that needs a workable MVP and paying customers, we’re open to it. 

The Lab is looking for all kinds of ideas. You can get crazy creative, so long as there is a meaningful application of the protocol or exit node network, and it contributes to the borderless and accessible web.

We also encourage teams to build solutions for social impact. We want to make sure resources are being used to solve real-world problems and create shared value for communities in need. Teams can collaborate with any relevant organisation to create tools or services that champion digital rights.

Learn more about the seed program in our DOCS, including technical and commercial criteria. (You can also check out the list of ideas for inspo further below.)

Throw your ideas at us!

Apply for funding here, or register your interest here.

Catch you in the Nectosystem 🖖

‍NEED SOME INSPO?

Here’s some ideas...

⛏ Data mining and web scraping

With some simple code and a single API, you can launch your own tool or platform to index products and services from around the world; concert tickets, crypto prices, trainers, hotels, news articles, lead generation, sports match history, or even where to stream the latest movies... Source and organise the world’s information by your preferred metrics, such as price, relevance or time.

🔍 Browsers & Search Engines

How about a borderless browser? Create a forked version of Chrome, with a dVPN built into it, and create a “VPN” tab for each location around the world. You coul make an dVPN extension, and even add dual-mode so you can also run a node and earn crypto every time you're browsing. Or make a geoshifting search engine for indexing both Web2 and Web3.

🤺 Internet traffic protector

Launch a Mysterium “at home” network service. Protects your entire network, as well as acting as a node. You could even make an easy-to-prototype Mysterium hardware firewall, similar to Firewaller by CISCO.

📺 Media streaming apps and platforms

Create a way to bypass geoblocks for worldwide entertainment access. Make an Android TV app with built-in VPN, or an API or extension that routes popular streaming services.

🌐 Censorship-resistant toolchains and environment

Make a toolchain for developers and create the next big privacy app. Create a backbone environment for developers, allowing more apps into the network for censorship-resistance. Check out this example R&D proposal.

🔄 Add more P2P services

Repurpose the network and add additional services to the P2P marketplace. Allow nodes to share internet resources such as data storage, processing power (CPU/GPU) or bandwidth for CDN.

🔗 Integrations

Plug the network into any app, service or ecosystem that makes sense! Maybe there’s a product that needs to be unblockable and made universally accessible. Perhaps you could provide in-app VPN coverage for cryptocurrency wallet transactions. Or you could help us make Lightening Network payments available, so that VPN users can pay nodes in bitcoin as they go.

What are you waiting for? Apply for funding Today!