Who’s worth watching from Binance Labs’ 13 new startups

The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance today announced a new tranche of protegees from Binance Labs, its startup incubation program.

These starry-eyed startups are setting out to woo users and investors—and make a difference in the world too.

The 13 startups range from security and bounty service providers to those targeting in-app monetization and cash-to-crypto kiosks focused on the developing world.

Of the new cohort, two companies focus on security solutions, reflecting the importance of this corner of the crypto ecosystem.

US-based Keylabs specializes in cryptocurrency, blockchain and hardware security for wallet and smart contracts, among other services. The company’s founder, Thomas Roth was named a Forbes 30 under 30 luminary.

Meanwhile, San-Francisco-based BaseZero offers hardware and software security solutions for financial institutions to protect cryptocurrency assets.

Binance is keen to demonstrate its philanthropic side, and recently donated over $3 million to charitable causes.

So it’s no surprise that three Binance Lab graduates focus on the developing world: Nigeria-based payment platform, Xend; Yellow Card, a cash-to-crypto on-ramp for emerging markets and Bit Sika, a Ghana-based, blockchain-powered donation platform, which provides for aid to Africa via a “Direct-To-Recipient” donation service for mobile users at almost no cost.

Interested in customer relationship management? Cerebellum, offers a blockchain (CRM) platform for to store key user data and allow dapps within the network to share and personalize  customer experience.

The other Labs graduates are: Raise, which wants to simplifying private securities ownership in frontier markets; Marlin Labs, which provides base layer scaling solutions for public blockchains; Mavrik, which is focused on non-fungible tokens (NFTs); Dune Analytics, which provides  analysis of Ethereum data;  PhishFort, a South African startup providing anti-phishing solutions for crypto; FomoSport, a decentralized sports prediction platform on the TRON blockchain, by developers Lucky Clover Global; and a decentralized oracle, Tellor, which aims to query off-chain data by incentivizing miners.

Binance has been busy cultivating a reputation for supporting new cryptocurrency projects and the first Binance Labs cohort were announced in April.

The onsite program, launched last year, focuses on a “clear product-market fit,” and “tangible solutions that provide sustainable growth of the global blockchain ecosystem.”

Successful startups can progress to the company’s Launchpad, which helps fund  and invest in promising blockchain projects, as well as those suitable for initial coin offerings.

“We are proud to have found 13 gems in Season II, and to have spent the past 10 weeks working with the BUIDLers to launch their demos and gained early traction,” said Ella Zhang, Head of Binance Labs.

This second stage of the incubation program concludes on June 7, 2019, with an invite-only pitch for investors.

Applicants wanting to be part of the next tranche will be looking towards October when the next selection phase begins.