Celo Camp Batch 4 has concluded, showcasing significant advancements in the Web3 startup space. The camp attracted 290 candidates from over 60 countries, with 30 teams participating in the accelerator program. Throughout the eight-week program, teams refined their decentralized applications (dapps) on the Celo platform, benefiting from mentorship and industry insights. Key highlights include the Demo Day event, where finalists pitched to a global audience, and the distribution of various awards. Masa Finance and Talent Protocol won the top two prizes. The camp also announced the opening of applications for Batch 5, continuing its support for decentralized entrepreneurship.

CELO

MASA

<figure><img src='https://sosovalue.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/sosovalue/web3image/24/08/28/tcodtmgx5ojn.png'/></figure>With the growth of the startup space in Web3, <a href="http://celocamp.com" target="_blank">Celo Camp</a> Batch 4 was the season of innovation and advancement in several Web3 domains. The camp attracted 290 incredible candidates from over 60 countries. Thirty teams were then selected to participate in the Celo Camp accelerator.Over the past eight weeks, camp teams focused on refining their dapps while building on the <a href="http://celo.org" target="_blank">Celo</a> platform. They also met one-on-one with mentors and industry leaders from organizations such as a16z, Electric Capital, NFX, Galaxy Digital, T-Systems MMS, Flori Ventures, CoinList, Collider Ventures, Cardinal Cryptography, Teller Finance, Figment, Edge, Ubeswap, Eterna Capital, Tackett Bartlett LLP, Verge Healthtech Fund, Halodoc, Immunefi, Tatum, the Smart Contract Research Forum, cLabs, the Celo Foundation, and more.Aside from being an accelerator that guides decentralized entrepreneurs in building sustainable and successful businesses on Celo, the camp also offers a pool of prizes of up to $150,000; high exposure to investment opportunities; connection to a network of partners, mentors, and alumni; and continued support from Upright, cLabs, and the Celo Foundation well beyond the camp.<blockquote>Applications for <a href="https://uprightvcamps.typeform.com/celocamp-5?typeform-source=www.crowdcast.io#source=medium" target="_blank">Celo Camp Batch 5</a> are now open!</blockquote>About his time at Celo Camp, Kirill Madorin, founder of Solaris Margin, said, “We had a great experience in Celo Camp. It has everything you need to build your crypto startup on Celo, from an idea to the product-market fit, the first users, and fundraising.”<figure><img src='https://sosovalue.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/sosovalue/web3image/24/08/28/z4h3tmgx5oo5.png'/><figcaption>The Final Project Showcase</figcaption></figure>The camp journey culminated at <a href="https://www.crowdcast.io/e/celo-camp-demo-day/register" target="_blank">Demo Day</a>, when 12 camp finalists were selected to pitch in front of a live audience of over 850 people from around the world, including investors, mentors, and the Celo community.On his camp experience, Richard Harless, founder at <a href="https://www.digitalstage.io/" target="_blank">Digitalstage.io</a>, said, “Our journey through Celo Camp has been one of the most rewarding and fun journeys of my career. With the support of Celo Camp and their team, we were able to start with just an idea, bring it forward and to life in just eight weeks. It completely transformed our company and hopefully the future of the music industry. We will always be grateful to Celo Camp for their support in helping bring this product to the world.”<h3>And the Winners🏆 Are…</h3>We are thrilled to congratulate the following teams for earning the top two awards of Celo Camp batch 4! Congratulations to the Masa Finance team for winning the Gold Prize of 10,000 cUSD and 2,000 CELO, and to Talent Protocol for winning the Silver Prize of 5,000 cUSD and 1,000 CELO.<h3>Masa Finance — Celo Camp’s Gold Prize Winner</h3><figure><img src='https://sosovalue.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/sosovalue/web3image/24/08/28/24oqtmgx5oa9.png'/><figcaption>Brendan Playford, Founder at Masa</figcaption></figure>Masa and Celo: Masa is a decentralized credit protocol that aggregates off-chain and on-chain financial data to create a decentralized credit score. Through its credit oracles and developer API, Masa provides a set of credit primitives (aggregations, features, and credit scorecards) that can be composed into a scorecard that is used to launch credit products in DeFi. Launching on Celo will enable the development of credit products for underserved individuals and businesses in emerging markets using low fee infrastructure and cUSD.Mission: Masa is on a mission to provide composable credit infrastructure for DeFi developers globally, enabling access to credit for any individual or business through DeFi.Next Steps: Masa is launching its incentivized testnet in December. Developers will be able to run a credit oracle and access the developer API. Following this, Masa will bootstrap the protocol with its first undercollateralized loans and liquidity pools.About his time at Celo Camp, Brendan Playford, Founder at Masa, stated, “Celo Camp added huge amounts of value in a very short period of time thanks to its network of mentors and partnership with industry experts, and its curriculum.”Follow Masa: <a href="https://twitter.com/BrendanPlayford" target="_blank">@brendanplayford</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/getmasafi" target="_blank">@getmasafinance</a>Contact: <a href="mailto:help@masa.finance" target="_blank">help@masa.finance</a>For more information: <a href="https://masa.finance/" target="_blank">https://masa.finance</a><h3>Talent Protocol — Celo Camp’s Silver Prize Winner</h3><figure><img src='https://sosovalue.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/sosovalue/web3image/24/08/28/bewstmgx5o79.png'/><figcaption>The Talent Protocol Team</figcaption></figure>Talent Protocol and Celo: Talent Protocol is a platform built on the Celo network. The Protocol enables talent to easily launch a social token to accelerate their career, and allows supporters to back the people they believe in. Like Celo, they aim to bring the power of Web3 tools to undervalued talent worldwide, while rewarding their early believers and most active backers.On Celo Camp, Pedro Oliviera, founder at Talent Protocol, stated, “Celo Camp has been such a blessing. The people I’ve met during the camp have become mentors, investors, talents, friends (people who launched their token on Talent Protocol), and advisors. As a final note, Monday’s Prosper sessions made me really look forward to the start of the week!”Mission: Talent Protocol’s mission is to create the means and incentives for anyone to discover, nurture, and empower talent worldwide by using the power of social tokens and Web3.Next Steps: Talent Protocol is rooted in the belief that openness and transparency are better for the world. That’s why they’re fully open-source, building in public, and on the way to becoming a DAO. In Season 2, coming next year, they will make their platform public to all supporters and launch their native token $TAL.Follow: <a href="https://twitter.com/talentprotocol" target="_blank">@talentprotocol</a>Contact: <a href="mailto:pedro@talentprotocol.com" target="_blank">pedro@talentprotocol.com</a>For more information: <a href="https://talentprotocol.com/" target="_blank">https://talentprotocol.com/</a><h3>The Celo Guild Awards</h3>The Celo Guild Awards are granted to teams that have impressed within their fields. The following teams have been awarded 3,000 cUSD and 1,000 CELO within their respective categories.Creators Economy Award: <a href="https://cybertime.finance/" target="_blank">Cybertime Finance</a> (Russia) and <a href="https://www.intotheverse.xyz/" target="_blank">Into the Verse</a> (India)Future of Payments Award: <a href="https://www.kaala.app/" target="_blank">Kaala.app</a> (Belgium)The DeFi Award: <a href="https://www.karma-protocol.co/" target="_blank">Karma</a> (USA)Financial Inclusion Award: <a href="https://www.fonbnk.com/" target="_blank">Fonbnk</a> (USA)<h3>The Celo Tenet and Innovation Awards</h3>The Celo Tenet Awards are given to teams whose projects embody Celo’s four community tenets: designing for all, striving for beauty, innovating on money, and embracing humility.The following four teams have earned a Celo Tenet Award of 2,000 cUSD and 500 CELO each: <a href="https://alloyx.org/" target="_blank">AlloyX</a> (USA), <a href="https://www.opencelo.org/" target="_blank">Centro | Celo DeFi Wallet</a> (USA), <a href="https://dataunion.app/" target="_blank">DataUnion</a> (Singapore), and <a href="https://www.digitalstage.io/" target="_blank">Digitalstage.io</a> (Germany).The Celo Foundation has also awarded the Build for All Award of 1,000 cUSD and 500 CELO to <a href="https://celo.tax/" target="_blank">Celo.tax</a> (Ireland) for bringing the community together and providing easily accessible tools necessary for tax reports and accounting.Additionally, the following teams have been awarded the Innovating On Money Award of 500 CELO each: <a href="https://aijia.fan/" target="_blank">Aijia</a> (Canada), <a href="https://www.n2xpress.com/" target="_blank">Alpha Fortress Ltd.</a> (Canada), <a href="https://ambitpay.co/" target="_blank">AMBIT</a> (USA), <a href="https://www.blockcash.finance/" target="_blank">BlockCash</a> (Singapore), <a href="https://cargo.finance/" target="_blank">Cargo Labs</a> (UK), <a href="https://cryptomate.me/" target="_blank">CryptoMate</a> (Argentina), <a href="https://www.defytrends.tech/" target="_blank">Defy Trends</a> (USA), <a href="https://promo.flywallet.io/" target="_blank">Flywallet</a> (France), <a href="https://greentrade.tech/" target="_blank">Green Trade</a> (Germany), <a href="https://humanity.cash/" target="_blank">Humanity Cash</a> (USA), <a href="https://www.itsmyne.club/" target="_blank">Itsmyne</a> (India), <a href="https://twitter.com/KukuzaDAO" target="_blank">Kukuza</a> (Germany and Kenya), <a href="https://remox.io/" target="_blank">Remox</a> (USA and Azerbaijan), <a href="https://santym.com/" target="_blank">Santym.com</a> (USA and Ethiopia), <a href="https://celo-margin.solarisprotocol.com/#/trade" target="_blank">Solaris Margin</a> (Russia), <a href="http://www.elfuturoestaenelmonte.org/#/" target="_blank">The Future is in the Forest</a> (Argentina), <a href="https://wam.money/" target="_blank">Wam</a> (Trinidad and Tobago), and <a href="https://www.wooy.co/" target="_blank">Wooy </a>(USA and Argentina)!We’d also like to congratulate <a href="http://yanda.io" target="_blank">Yanda</a>, the winner of the <a href="https://medium.com/the-upright-blog/heading-to-the-summit-d5668137046a" target="_blank">Startup Pathway program</a>, who received the wild card entry to Celo Camp’s <a href="https://www.crowdcast.io/e/celo-camp-demo-day" target="_blank">Demo Day</a> and has been awarded 1,200 cUSD and 600 Celo by the Celo Foundation.About his experience, Mario Stumpo, founder of Yanda, stated, “The startup pathway meant a lot for us. It instilled quite a lot of confidence in the team and it helped with reaching our milestones fast and efficiently. The team behind the pathway is also great,” he added. “The help received from Elad, Rachel, and Alon is unmeasurable and very effective. Celo is still relatively new on the scene but already hit milestones that other chains can just dream about. At Yanda, we’re very happy to be part of the CELO ecosystem and we’ll do our best to improve it more and more.”<h3>The Ubeswap DeFi Award</h3>Ubeswap, in its partnership with Celo Camp, has awarded the following three camp teams with the Ubeswap DeFi Award for teams that best embody Celo’s tenets of creating DeFi projects that are inclusive, secure, and contributing to impact.First place of $6,000 UBE: CentroSecond place of $3,000 UBE: AlloyXCommunity Award of $1,000 UBE: Into the VerseOn the award and partnership with Celo Camp, Evan Kereiakes, Business Lead at Ubeswap, stated, “Working with Celo Camp and the incredible teams in Batch 4 has been very rewarding, and it’s amazing to see the continued growth in developer talent of the teams. The Ubeswap community is thrilled to award Centro, AlloyX, and Into the Verse with the Ubeswap DeFi Prize for their excellence in making DeFi on Celo more inclusive.”<h3>Celo Camp—Batch 5</h3>We’d like to officially announce that Celo Camp Batch 5 is coming to you in March of 2022! <a href="https://uprightvcamps.typeform.com/celocamp-5?typeform-source=www.crowdcast.io#source=medium" target="_blank">Apply to Batch 5</a> today, join Celo Camp and the Celo ecosystem, and start contributing to the future of inclusive finance and Web3!Congrats to all the graduates and awardees! Celo Camp is thrilled to welcome all Batch 4 teams to our alumni network, and we look forward to following their journeys and contributions to the future of decentralized finance and Celo! As Elio Jordan, co-founder at Into the Verse exclaimed, “Reaching the top of the mountain is only the beginning. The Celo Camp network will help you reach the stars.”Follow us: <a href="https://www.celocamp.com/" target="_blank">Celocamp.com</a>, <a href="http://www.celo.org/" target="_blank">Celo.org</a>, <a href="https://discord.gg/NwKPjr" target="_blank">Discord</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/UprightVcamps" target="_blank">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCz1izt9M9eedDCl91u9g-g" target="_blank">Celo Camp on Youtube</a>, <a href="https://medium.com/the-upright-blog" target="_blank">The Upright Blog</a>, <a href="https://www.upright.gg/" target="_blank">Upright.gg</a>.<img src=''/><hr /><a href="https://blog.celo.org/announcing-the-grand-prize-winners-and-awardees-of-celo-camp-batch-4-64379c2e254a" target="_blank">Announcing the Grand Prize Winners and Awardees of Celo Camp—Batch 4</a> was originally published in <a href="https://blog.celo.org" target="_blank">The Celo Blog</a> on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Celo Camp Batch 4 Concludes with Key Awards and Announces Batch 5 Applications