Meet the Base Batches 003 Cohort
Originally published on Paragraph.
What is Base Batches?
Base Batches is a high-intensity accelerator designed to help the top Base builders launch and scale their startups.
Base Batches 001 started as an extended hackathon with a virtual livestreamed demo day, with the breakout app Noice taking down the top prize. Batches 002 was split into two tracks. The Builder Track consisted of a hackathon for early stage builders with a virtual support program for the top 50 teams. The Startup Track was designed for more mature teams who were actively fundraising, and Base flew 50 teams from all over the world to a live demo day as part of Devconnect in Buenos Aires. This culminated in several success stories including Charms.ai, Glider, and our overall winner Upshot going on to complete successful raises and product launches.
Like the startups in each cohort, Batches itself has evolved. Founders told us what they needed most: targeted support, and above all else, help raising.
Therefore, Base Batches 003 featured an accelerator program with dedicated mentorship, geared towards driving funding outcomes for participating teams via a Demo Day, with many teams ultimately receiving direct investments from the Base Ecosystem Fund.
The Base Batches 003 Selection Process
When Base Batches 003 opened applications in February, we were blown away that 1,175 teams applied. That is a 63% increase in applications from Base Batches 002, and the clearest signal yet that builders are choosing Base as the place to ship.
From those 1,175 teams, our team manually reviewed each application ultimately selecting ~120 teams who moved onto the interview stage based on a few core factors including: founder-market fit, Base-alignment, and traction.
Each of these 120 teams were then scheduled for short 15-minute interviews with questions that assessed the teams on (among other things):
- Clarity: Can the team clearly describe the problem their product solves?
- Demonstrated mastery: What unique, proprietary insight(s) do they have for their market?
- Velocity: How frequently do they ship products and test growth strategies?
- Founder-Market Fit: What distinct backgrounds do the founders have that make them suited to win in their market?
And finally, our team with direct input from the Base Ecosystem Fund selected the 12 teams that participated in the Base Batches 003 cohort. These teams were concentrated in the verticals that have established Product-Market Fit in the industry: stablecoins, prediction markets, DeFi, and AI, with a few teams building directly with the x402 protocol.
The Base Batches 003 cohort directly aligns with Base’s updated Mission, Vision, Strategy for 2026 focusing on trading, payments, and ultimately teams building the apps and protocols that will grow the onchain economy and Base’s ecosystem.
And for the teams that weren’t selected: accelerator selections are a puzzle of numbers, diversity of sectors, and stage-specific constraints. They are not a verdict on your potential. Some of the most resilient protocols in crypto were built in the “quiet” periods, away from the spotlights and the hype cycles. So make sure to register your app, adopt Builder Codes to track your growth, and keep shipping.
Meet the Cohort
- Blockrun.ai: Infra for AI agents to access LLMs, tools, and data – all paid per request via x402. Founder: Vicky Fu
- Forecast: A new leverage primitive for prediction markets. Founder: Joey Roth
- 4Mica: The clearing infrastructure for agentic microtransactions. Founders: Akash Madhusudan + Mairon Mahzoun
- OPAL: Privacy Perp DEX - Trade Crypto & RWAs with house-blind privacy. Founders: Kenzan Boo + Clemens Walter
- Onsight: The gamified social predictions platform. Founder: Tommy Ngo
- Credifi: Uncollateralized lending via zktls + credit score. Founders: Motasem Ahmed + Aaron Ash
- Tomorrow: Secured stablecoin lending for the creator economy. Founders: Abhi Raheja + Nitin Mittal
- Agently: Routing layer where AI coordinates and transacts. Founders Luke Xie + Fuxing Loh + Jia Jian Goi
- Nivo: Onchain FX Hedging Platform for SMEs. Founder: Nicolas Arevalo
- JPEG App: Opinion Markets on photo content where the highest bet wins. Founders: Danny Vayne + Keng Hin
- Floe Labs: Credit for AI Agents and Institutions. Founder: Alex Christian
- Liminal: Self-custodial AI-native neobank. Founders: Fifi Tsamados + Jack Marsh
What’s Ahead
Base Batches 003 was a seven-week virtual program that ran from April 6th to May 19th, consisting of:
- Weekly keynote sessions from top founders
- Dedicated mentorship with experts from both within Coinbase and externally
- Perks program from our partners including Venice, AWS, FailSafe, Alchemy, Coinbase Developer Platform, and Coinbase Business
- Product design roast sessions by Airfoil
- Weekly open office hours held by key Base leaders from across our engineering, product, GTM, and Base Ecosystem Fund
- Demo Day practice sessions and roasts
And the program concluded with a live Demo Day in SF on May 19th, where each team had two minutes to present their company to an audience of investors as they looked to close their round and scale their business (watch part 1 of pitches, watch part 2 of pitches).
Twelve teams spent seven weeks shipping harder than they ever have before. And now, they have advisors in their corner, a network of Base founders behind them, and a clear path in front of them.
This cohort represents the cutting edge of the onchain economy and will define the future of Base in 2026.