TLDR
- Solana-focused startup accelerator Colosseum raised $60 million for early-stage investments.
- Colosseum organizes hackathons for the Solana ecosystem to identify promising projects.
- The fund will focus on pre-seed investments in selected startups from Solana Hackathon winners.
- Colosseum has already invested $2.75 million across 11 companies.
- The accelerator’s first hackathon attracted over 8,000 participants from 95 countries.
Colosseum, a startup accelerator focused on the Solana blockchain ecosystem, has successfully raised $60 million for its first fund. This significant sum will be used to invest in early-stage projects, particularly those emerging from Solana hackathons.
The company, which took over the organization of Solana hackathons from the Solana Foundation in January 2024, sees these events as crucial for innovation and company formation in the crypto space. Colosseum’s co-founder, Clay Robbins, stated,
“We started Colosseum to enable founders to compete and realize their product vision without the geographic restrictions of traditional accelerator models.”
The fund’s primary focus will be on pre-seed investments in startups selected from Solana Hackathon winners.
This approach aims to identify and support promising projects at their earliest stages. Colosseum has already put this strategy into action, having invested $2.75 million across 11 different companies, with each receiving about $250,000.
Colosseum’s first hackathon, held earlier this year, attracted over 8,000 participants from 95 countries. The event lasted five weeks and resulted in more than 1,000 product submissions.
The accelerator offers a six-week online program to support hackathon winners. This program helps projects become part of the Solana ecosystem, quickly improve their products, and raise seed funding faster. Colosseum also provides educational sessions and upfront investment to selected projects.
To be chosen for investment, projects must be among the winners of the hackathon events, which Colosseum plans to hold 2-3 times per year. The $250,000 investment given to winners is structured as a simple agreement for future equity (SAFE) with token warrants.
The $60 million fund attracted a diverse group of investors, including ecosystem founders and hackathon alumni. Among the investors is Bonk DAO, a group of 12 Solana experts who manage $124 million worth of BONK tokens.
Earlier this year, Bonk DAO announced plans to invest $500,000 in the Colosseum fund.
Robbins explained the appeal of the fund to investors:
“Many of Colosseum’s LPs are agnostic to ecosystem but believe in the team’s immediate thesis that the Solana ecosystem has the most potential.”
He added that institutional investors are interested in both the current focus and the future potential of the model.
According to reports, a majority of venture-backed startups in the Solana ecosystem began at these hackathons. Over $650 million in venture capital has been raised by these startups, with total valuations in the billions.
Nate Levine, another co-founder of Colosseum, emphasized their commitment to supporting both hackathon participants and accelerator founders. The accelerator aims to provide the resources needed for these projects to succeed.
The Solana ecosystem has shown significant growth in developer activity. As of January 2024, it had more than 2,500 monthly active developers working on open-source repositories. This increase in development activity, combined with the support from accelerators like Colosseum, suggests a bright future for the Solana blockchain ecosystem.
Colosseum’s approach of using hackathons to identify investment opportunities appears to be meeting a market need. As Robbins noted, “It’s evident that there is a market demand for novel, specialized venture products in crypto.”
