Five exceptional Web3 startups showcased their vision at the Codebase Virtual Pitch Day, competing for a share of $500,000 in prizes. After ten weeks of intense development and refinement as part of Avalanche’s flagship accelerator program, these teams demonstrated how they're solving real problems leveraging the best of Avalanche’s technology.

The event kicked off with a keynote from Dr. Emin Gün Sirer, Co-founder of Avalanche and CEO of Ava Labs, who reflected on his journey from academia to entrepreneurship. He emphasized the importance of building decentralized systems that give power back to users rather than keeping them at the mercy of centralized services. "We are not here for talk and talk and talk," Dr. Sirer stated, highlighting Avalanche's commitment to delivering practical solutions rather than theoretical concepts.

Following the keynote, each startup had five minutes to pitch their project, followed by questions from a panel of distinguished judges: Ben Murray from Helix 3, Matt Immero from Blockchange Ventures, and Austin Marrazza from Dragonfly.

The 5 participating teams were: Bu Finance, The Indexing Company, Sherry Protocol, Hashfire, and Nameless. 

After 5 great presentations and careful deliberation with the judges, the grand prize winners were announced. The Indexing Company secured third place with a $100,000 prize, Nameless took second place with $150,000, and Hashfire emerged as the first-place winner, receiving $250,000.

Watch the full demo day here:

Between pitch presentations, John Nahas, Chief Business Officer at Ava Labs, and Brian Lieberman, Director of Ecosystem Relations, shared insights on recent growth of the Avalanche ecosystem. They highlighted significant developments including the Avalanche9000 upgrade, which enabled new Avalanche L1s to be created much more easily, and the Octane upgrade, which further reduced fees and optimized performance on the C-chain.

For developers looking to build on Avalanche, Nahas advised: "Go build something cool that blockchain just allows for... Build real businesses, build things that matter and that make an impact." Lieberman added the importance of building something where you can "test and iterate quickly to find your core community."

Want to join these visionary builders? Applications for Codebase are on a rolling basis, so make sure to head to the website to sign up. Bring your ideas to life with funding, mentorship, and access to the rapidly growing Avalanche ecosystem. https://codebase.avax.network/