In this report, we’ll summarize key milestones that were achieved during H1 for Celo Camp Batch 9 and the Startup Pathway program. This follows our H1: Mid-Batch Report (posted on July 4th) which provided updates from the 1st half of the Celo Camp cohort.
Celo Camp Batch 9: The MiniPay Launchpad
The second edition of the MiniPay Launchpad kicked off on March 6th in collaboration with the Celo Foundation and Opera. After an incredible 8 weeks of programming tailor-made for founders building dApps for MiniPay, here are some of the program highlights, which concluded on August 27th following Demo Day.
MiniPay Launchpad Demo Day Recording
MiniPay Launchpad Program Highlights
- 16 teams graduated the program
- 14 teams (87.5% of graduates) demonstrated integration with MiniPay/Celo with a demo and open-source Github Repo [goal was 80%]
- Pretium Finance, Batch 9 gold prize winner, has been listed on MiniPay and enables seamless Lipa Na M-Pesa payments directly from MiniPay. We were also happy to see that BitGifty, Batch 8 grand prize winner, has facilitated over 90,000 local bill payments including electricity, airtime, data, and cable subscriptions on MiniPay.
- Net promoter score (NPS) = 75 [goal was 60+]
- 33 camp sessions (more than 40 hours of live programming)
- 25 guest speakers from the MiniPay team, IDEO, Bloomtree Wellness, Verda Ventures and the Celo Foundation alongside other great organizations and speakers.
- 22 mentors from organizations like: Opera, EchoVC, Hashed Emergent, GoodDollar, Fonbnk, Transak, Teller Finance, Consensys, Climate Collective, Symmetric, Paychant, Clixpesa, Yuki, Flashbots, Arca and impactMarket, all of whom offered personalized mentorship.
- 223 applications from 51 countries [goal was more than 150 applications]
- 650+ votes for camp winners
- 16,000+ views on Demo Day recording
- 200+ attendees at Demo Day
- 17,500 CELO to be distributed in awards
- Check out the award recipients for Celo Camp Batch 9 here!
Batch 9 projects were focused on improving financial accessibility and user experience in emerging markets, specifically Africa, through innovative use of stablecoins and blockchain technology.
Batch 9 graduates:
Pretium, Chipz, Sargo, AionSol, PayBox, Arttribute, Younglings Africa, Ajira Pay, Blaqk Stereo, GlobaChain, Esusu Inc, Carus recycling, Pay-Craft, Utoken, Lingofi, Shukuru.
Startup Pathway
The Startup Pathway kicked off the “Launch your Web3 project in 30 Days challenge” on July 8th in collaboration with Celo Regional DAOs and Celo Hackathons. Here are some of the program highlights, which concluded on September 10th:
Program Highlights
- 10 open-source Github repos submitted showcasing integration with Celo
- 40 participants in the program [goal was 15-30]
- 110+ signups on the Startup Pathway LMS platform
- 352 sign-ups for the challenge [goal was 100]
- Hosted 3 online events with 140+ attendees combined
- 2000 CELO distributed in awards
The 4 Startup Pathway Prize winners (500 CELO each) are:
- Kora InsuTech – Providing insurance companies with decentralized solutions to improve claims accuracy, transparency, and trust through real-time data integration.
- New Festival Town (Ashara Studios) – A virtual console that brings digital assets to life through retro gaming.
- Zumji – Enabling SMEs to stake cUSD, earn rewards, access liquidity, and engage customers with gamified features.
- Dobprotocol – Ensuring collaboration tools exist on every blockchain to distribute benefits from decentralized assets.
Community Conversations
The Upright Ventures team hosted multiple virtual discussions with ecosystem partners during H1 2024. In total, these conversations received 22,000+ views:
- Resources & Opportunities on Celo (w/ Talent Protocol & Prezenti)
- Exploring the Celo Ecoystem (w/ Celo Regional DAOs & Celo Hackathons)
- Building for MiniPay on Celo (w/ the Celo Foundation & BitGifty)
Summary
We had an incredible first half of the year with a total of 24 open source projects submitted, 7 award winners from both Celo Camp & Startup Pathway and great news from our recent graduates Pretium and BitGifty. We want to thank the amazing participants of both programs who made these cohorts a reality. We are sure this is just the beginning of their journeys and excited to hear that several teams will be meeting in person during Celo Gather Africa and EthSafari.
We also want to thank the Opera team for their great support during camp, the Celo Foundation, CeloPG and the Celo community. During H1 we were also grateful to launch new partnerships with the Celo Regional DAOs (Celo Africa DAO, CeLatam, KohCelo, and Celo Europe DAO), Prezenti who awarded Pretium with the Prezenti X Celo Camp grant award, and Talent Protocol (CCB4 graduate) who will allocate a piece of their RPGF funds to our graduates.
Plans for H2 & Beyond
We are excited to work on launching the next iteration of the MiniPay Launchpad and would love to get the community’s support for the next camp cohort. We believe that more focused curation criteria combined with increased collaboration with the MiniPay team, Celo Regional DAOs, Prezenti, and Talent Protocol (among other ecosystem initiatives) enables us to deliver even more valuable initiatives to the Celo community while achieving the goal of onboarding exceptional teams to MiniPay.
In addition, we’ve outlined a program to support the OP x Celo transition alongside other potential tech-stack integrations. We plan to empower founders to leverage these technical advancements in their pursuit of building thriving Web3 ventures. Our team has mapped out the areas with the most potential impact and have created content that is ready to be launched.