vibhu@vibhu
Need to address some glaring inaccuracies in the current discourse about @Solana.
Would bet a significant amount that we (at SF & as an ecosystem) do more to support founders/builders than any other network, and it’s probably not even that close.
First, let’s talk about funding:
- Since Jan 1, we’ve run 3 Hackathons (Privacy, Consumer/NFTs/Gaming, Agents), and Labs ran their own (Mobile), and there are many more coming including the global Solana hackathon with Colosseum. Additionally, eco teams like Ranger and Arcium recently debuted hackathons. These come with millions in prizes.
- Solana builders can join @colosseum or @incubator for YC-style funding, investments, and mentorship with our direct support. Founders in Colosseum alone have gone on to raise $650 million+ in venture funding.
- @Superteam is our global founder network, with thousands of members - and we just launched Superteam USA to fund and assist founders in the biggest market. Superteam is Solana family, designed for builders.
- Superteam offers instagrants up to $10k + Earn which has paid out millions, YC founders building on Solana can get up to $50k extra, Kalshi x Solana has a $2m fund for prediction markets, and SF offers evergreen grants for open source & public goods with a $40k average check size. Many other teams offer grant-style funding as well, including Monke Foundry, Metaplex, Wormhole, Bonk, Seeker, etc.
In total, Foundation and adjacent entities fund tens of millions collectively each year into early stage startups and builders who are advancing the network, with no equity commitments or tradeoffs - in service of growing the ecosystem.
Second, let’s talk about distribution:
- Foundation holds events all over the world directly, including Accelerate and Breakpoint, but also assists with funding and resources for community events like mtndao, Solana Summit, and many other hyper regional events. Our entire goal: put builders on stage, give them an audience, and then help them distribute their message.
- Since Jan 1, @Solana has amplified 300+ different ecosystem companies. In fact we handle so much inbound load from teams wanting amplification that we built multiple targeted handles to do this even better, like @capitalmarkets, @solanapayments, and @x402.
- Even in Gaming, we dedicate distribution resources to builders through @solanagaming, and stream games multiple times per week.
- Our distribution has real impact. Last month we sent our live team to @mtndao to host Demo Day, and platformed dozens of builders by putting them on stage, livestreaming them, and then clipping their segments. One team, Tapestry, noted that after the stream they had thousands of new downloads on their mobile app.
- @Luminaries, our top content creator collective, distributes stories from ecosystem builders through 50+ influencers across many different channels
- We produce hundreds of high quality videos and clips per year across stories, explainers, and education that feature our ecosystem teams
- SF hosts 10 regular podcasts to feature ecosystem teams, and sponsors and produces countless others, like The Index and Genfinity. In this case, we acquire media channels & time and we directly book guests from our ecosystem that have a story to tell
Last year, we led all crypto networks in total impressions and engagement on X & LinkedIn. Again, I would guess it wasn't really that close.
If you’re building on Solana, our firehose is yours to use.
Solana is not only the best place to build, it’s the best place to win customers and build a giant business. No network has produced more multi-billion $ companies with real, sustainable businesses and moats.
If we don’t know you yet and you’re here, we would love to hear from you and see how we can help. That’s quite literally our job.
Don't believe everything you read on X 🫡
