Pivot

🚀And just like that, we are 1⃣ year “old”… 🌟 Over the past 12 months of our foray as a #Web3 startup venture accelerator firm, we have: - Received 400+ applications 🚀 - Built an ecosystem comprising 400+ partners - VCs, L1s, L2s, exchanges, MMs, agencies & so much more.. 🤝 - Onboarded 50+ mentors & Angels 🦸‍♂️🦸‍♀️ - Onboarded 15 awesome startups to our flagship acceleration program - stay tuned for reveals. 🌟 🚀 All this to try and put a dent in #Web3.. 💥 We are Pivot - helping founders build great #Web3 companies! 💡 The following 🧵 is us moving the needle a notch higher in a systematic manner! 🔧⚙️ #letspivot #gratitude

$250M raised for building the native search and retrieval layer for the AI agent economy. Exa Labs secured a $250 million Series C funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). The landmark capital injection values the AI search infrastructure startup at $2.2 billion more than tripling its $700 million valuation from late last year. It’s more than just providing general-purpose web search APIs. Exa is engineering a massive, specialized retrieval infrastructure tailored explicitly for machines rather than humans. Instead of returning messy, token-heavy conversational summaries or standard HTML links, the system uses custom neural embeddings to surface clean, structured data designed for direct ingestion by LLMs. Why it Matters? As autonomous software and agentic workflows come online, the total search volume from machines will completely dwarf legacy human queries. Already serving over 400,000 developers and powering AI products like Cursor, Cognition, and Notion. Exa is separating the grounding layer from the model layer ensuring every frontier AI has instant access to fresh, real-time civilizational data without hallucination constraints. #letspivot

8/ Applications are open at Pivot. If you're a Web3 or AI startup looking for: - Funding access through 300+ VC partners - Mentors who've built sustainable businesses - Global ecosystem exposure across exchanges, launchpads and networks Apply here: pivot.ac/Startup-Applic… Or drop a reply or DM and let's talk about where your startup is right now. #letspivot

7/ The winners of the next cycle won't just be the networks boasting the absolute highest technical throughput. They will be the application ecosystems that leverage account abstraction to build the most seamless, invisible, and high-conversion user experiences on the web. Overcoming the usability trap is the ultimate proof of long-term product vision and mainstream product-market fit. As the market flushes out overly complex protocols, platforms built with absolute user simplicity at the core are the ones primed to capture global scale. Follow @pivotintelHQ for more such decodes #letspivot

1/ Web3 has a massive user adoption crisis, and it isn't a lack of features. It’s a broken user experience. Forcing mainstream consumers to act like network engineers just to send a transaction is killing conversion rates. Here is the Pivot Decode on Account Abstraction. 🧵 #letspivot

$200M raised to expand regulated prediction market infrastructure. Kalshi secured an additional $200 million from Baillie Gifford and Layer Global, adding to its previously announced $1 billion Series F round led by Coatue Management. The company remains valued at $22 billion, with backing from Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz, Paradigm, Morgan Stanley, and ARK Invest. Kalshi operates a CFTC-regulated prediction market where users trade event contracts tied to elections, economic data, sports, and other real-world outcomes. In April alone, the platform processed over $14 billion in trading volume. Why it Matters? Institutional investors are increasingly viewing prediction markets as a new category of financial infrastructure. As regulated event based trading grows, platforms like Kalshi are turning real world outcomes into tradable financial markets at scale. #letspivot

15 years ago, someone spent 10,000 BTC on two pizzas. People remember the price. But they forget what the transaction actually represented. Bitcoin Pizza Day was the moment crypto stopped being just an idea and became usable in the real world. It proved something every founder eventually learns: Technology only matters when people are willing to use it. Too many startups today chase hype before utility. Narratives before adoption. Valuation before validation. But lasting companies are built on one thing: real user behaviour. In this article, we break down why Bitcoin Pizza Day is far more than a meme and what founders can learn from the first real-world Bitcoin transaction about adoption, utility, and building products people genuinely use. Read more here: linkedin.com/pulse/bitcoin-… #letspivot

Excited to announce that Pivot is the official partner for @mpost_io’s upcoming HSC Conference in Ho Chi Minh City 🇻🇳 As the digital asset space matures, the conversation is shifting from speculation to real infrastructure, institutional participation, and global financial integration. This event will bring together founders, investors, and ecosystem leaders to discuss where smart capital is moving, how tokenized finance is evolving, and what still stands in the way of true mainstream adoption. From institutional trading and digital asset infrastructure to the rise of stablecoins as a global financial rail, the conversations will explore the trends defining the next chapter of the industry. If you’re building, investing, or closely following the future of digital finance, this is a conversation worth being part of. Register here: luma.com/HSC_HoChiMinh #letspivot

Most founders think a term sheet is an automatic win. But when runway is short, accepting the wrong capital can cost you your entire company. The startups surviving today aren't just taking any open checkbook, they are protecting their cap tables against toxic, desperate terms designed to control their exits. Because a major funding milestone with bad terms is still a broken business. In our latest article, we break down what "Desperate Capital" actually looks like under the hood and why founders must prioritize clean terms over survival vanity. Read more here: linkedin.com/posts/pivotint… #letspivot

$670M raised for bridging traditional banking with the digital asset ecosystem. Dunamu secured a $670 million investment from Hana Financial Group. Sourced through a 6.55% equity acquisition via Hana Bank, this landmark transaction marks South Korea's largest-ever equity deal between a legacy commercial banking group and a digital asset operator. The partnership moves past retail trading to co-develop won-backed stablecoin infrastructure, blockchain powered SWIFT style foreign currency remittances, and digital wealth management services. Why it Matters? The deal signals a massive shift toward traditional finance (TradFi) taking direct ownership positions in digital asset infrastructure. By leveraging Dunamu's proprietary Giwa blockchain network alongside Hana’s global banking footprint, the duo is actively pioneering the cross-border, compliant future of digital financial products in Asia. #letspivot

8/ Applications are open at Pivot. If you're a Web3 or AI startup looking for: - Funding access through 300+ VC partners - Mentors who've built sustainable businesses - Global ecosystem exposure across exchanges, launchpads and networks Apply here: pivot.ac/Startup-Applic… Or drop a reply or DM and let's talk about where your startup is right now. #letspivot

7/ The winners of the next cycle won't just be the "fastest" blockchains. They will be the ones that can absorb and move the most institutional RWA value. As we move through 2026, the focus is shifting from "how do we tokenize" to "how do we integrate" these assets into the very fabric of the internet. Those who ignore the modular shift of Treasuries onto the ledger risk being left behind on stagnant, expensive legacy rails. Follow @pivotintelHQ for more such decodes #letspivot

1/ The era of "dead cash" in Web3 is over. The world’s most liquid asset the US Treasury has officially moved on-chain, and the race to control this infrastructure is moving faster than most founders realize. Here is the Pivot Decode on the Tokenized Treasury race. 🧵 #letspivot