- Summary:
- CARV Labs' mission is to enable a dynamic, decentralized data infrastructure that empowers users to control and monetize their data.
CARV is launching a $50 million accelerator to incubate projects capable of driving the mass adoption of its eponymous data protocol.
With backing from top blockchain VC funds, including HashKey Capital and Consensys, the modular data layer for gaming and AI has pledged to support innovators, particularly those actively building the future of decentralized data.
Backed by CARV Protocol, the accelerator’s mission is to enable a dynamic, decentralized data infrastructure that empowers users to control and monetize their data. It will provide comprehensive support to startups, including funding and investment backed by leading industry funds, go-to-market and growth support, expert tokenomics advisory, infrastructure and tooling tech advice, and access to the company’s industry network and community.
“Our goal is to enable a decentralized data ecosystem for broader innovation,” said CARV Co-Founder Victor Yu. “Building sustainable data infrastructure hinges on creating a dynamic data flywheel, which requires modular infrastructure and a critical mass of high-quality applications post-PMF. To push for the next hockey stick, we want to further encourage building by more players.”
As well as direct funding and investment, CARV Labs will supply marketing and growth support, plus tokenomics advisory services, community-building, and prioritized infrastructure and tooling support from CARV and its network partners.
Current industry investors set to play a role in the accelerator’s vertical-specific programs include MARBLEX, the web3 arm of South Korean mobile game developer Netmarble; Intella X, the Web3 Publishing arm of South Korea’s Global Game Developer and Publisher NEOWIZ, the crowdfunding platform Alphastarter; Doublejump.tokyo, the developer behind the Oasys blockchain; various business angels; game publisher Xterio; Solana, NEAR and Ronin networks.
Additional partners such as Arweave, Litentry, the Linea Ecosystem Investment Alliance (LEIA), and Alibaba Cloud will also promote the accelerator. Linea, the secure zkEVM L2 that empowers dapps to thrive, will further market a web3 gaming offer later this year that will connect to the accelerator.
The first project incubated under CARV Labs, BANANA, an idle game built on the TON ecosystem, attracted over 8M users within just 4 weeks with more than 1M daily active users, 1.8M social accounts connected, and 73M social tasks completed. The rapid success of BANANA underscores CARV Labs’ effectiveness in fostering innovation and driving user engagement in decentralized applications. This milestone showcases the potential for future projects and positions CARV Labs as a leader in the space.
The groundswell of applications building on the protocol has enabled CARV to generate over $5 million in revenue YTD, with more games and projects in the pipeline. Last month, it announced the launch of its Alphanet, run by the 40K verifier nodes distributed to its community worth $35M. The milestone was considered an important one as CARV evolves into a truly decentralized and scalable protocol layer. Alphanet’s arrival followed April’s Series A funding round, led by Tribe Capital and IOSG Ventures, which attracted $10 million.
Gaming, AI, and data infrastructure projects interested in finding out more about the new accelerator are advised to reach out via CARV’s official Discord channel.