Cardano Genesis Pre-Accelerator Program Launches with 13 Teams
Cardano has launched its Genesis Pre-Accelerator program, which brings together early-stage builders with Draper University and the Orion Fund initiative. The current cohort includes 13 teams from six countries, focusing on areas such as institutional DeFi, payments, compliance, enterprise infrastructure, and AI-related applications.
The program is a four-week Silicon Valley residency for up to 15 teams, with selected projects receiving up to $20,000 in investment for a target 2% equity position. This cohort links participating teams to the $80 million Draper Dragon Orion Fund, which focuses on Cardano companies progressing from accelerator stage toward institutional scale.
Meanwhile, Cardano has seen a spike in DEX volumes, with weekly volume surging as high as $101.8 million last week (17-23 August), but cooling down to $56.9 million this week. Address activity also retreated to pre-market spike levels, and TVL did not register a substantial uptick.
The Cardano crypto price pulled off a 50% rally from as low as $0.177 on 18 August to $0.258 on 22 August before experiencing profit-taking, which pulled the price down by about 21% to its $0.20 press time price tag. Despite this, whale orderbooks still demonstrated renewed interest in Cardano.