Nexera is thrilled to announce that they continue their role as blockchain experts and key partners in the Plug and Play Crypto & Digital Assets vertical. With the recent success of three sold-out capital raise campaigns (Nuklai, Arkefi, and Brainstems) on Nexera’s decentralized peer-to-peer funding platform — Fundrs. The continued collaboration will connect innovative startups to Nexera’s leading tokenization infrastructure.
Nexera is a founding partner for Plug and Play’s Crypto & Digital Assets vertical, which started in 2022. Following this partnership, Nexera team members have attended conferences and presented keynote discussions, both in person and online, for the innovation platform, discussing industry topics, Nexera’s solutions, and how they will shape the future of DeFi and Web3. More recently, some of Nexera’s most exciting infrastructure clients have been featured in Plug and Play’s accelerator program and presented their visions at events in Silicon Valley and beyond.
Plug and Play is the ultimate innovation platform whose mission is to build the world’s leading innovation platform and open innovation to anyone, anywhere. Their distinctive ecosystem fosters collaboration among startups, corporations, venture capital firms, universities, and government agencies, granting entry to a worldwide network of over 75,000 startups and more than 500 corporations.
They specialize in driving innovation in over 20 industries, such as Fintech, with partners Facebook, BNP Paribas, and US Bank, Brand and Retail, with partners Panasonic, EY Pantheon and Coca Cola and Enterprise Tech, with partners Red Bull, Unisys and NEC.
In this blog, we will revisit the journeys of both teams and the innovative products and companies that have been developed and grown from the relationship.
Workshops at Plug and Play led to Nexera’s Connectivity Infrastructure and the Development of NexeraID and Brillion
In 2022, Founder and CEO Rachid Ajaja and other team members attended the Plug and Play Summit in Silicon Valley, where they interacted with thought leaders and like-minded innovators, discussing Web3’s potential and the state of the crypto market. During this visit, Rachid presented a crypto workshop to a packed room, introducing Nexera (then AllianceBlock) with a focused conversation on regulation and compliance in the DeFi Space.
Founder and CEO Rachid Ajaja discussing compliance in DeFi at the 2022 Plug and Play Silicon Valley June Summit
Rachid discussed the industry’s challenges at the time, such as the lack of regulation, regulatory guidelines in crypto, and the technological improvements needed to support organizations in their compliance management. Compliance was also emphasized as the final puzzle for the institutional adoption of cryptocurrencies. Business leaders’ interest in this workshop drove Nexera to develop its privacy-preserving compliance solution — NexeraID.
NexeraID boosts trust and Web3 adoption by making compliance accessible and unlocking strategic insights for business growth and innovation. Since those initial discussions, this has become key to the next adoption phase of Web3, especially recently, when the EU made a legislative move to ban anonymous transactions through hosted wallets.
Since its development, NexeraID has represented at Plug and Play events, been a part of their accelerator program, and interacted with and onboarded clients based on introductions by the Plug and Play team. Not only this, but the Nexera infrastructure that NexeraID has been built on has also developed Brillion.
Brillion is an innovative smart wallet that seamlessly manages, transacts, and integrates digital assets with global banking. This Nexera Ecosystem partner has also presented its vision to attendees of recent Plug and Play events and has been exposed to the innovation leader’s extensive network of startups and corporations.
Nexera’s Fundrs Raises Capital for Three Start-Ups with Galileo Protocol Featuring in Plug and Play’s Accelerator Program
Nexera’s compliant tokenization infrastructure has been developed to broaden access to capital and create a more democratized and participatory economy. Nexera Fundrs is the key solution in driving this mission. Since its release, Fundrs has helped six projects to raise capital and launch their tokens compliantly. Three of these projects have integrated their innovative solutions into the Nexera Ecosystem by connecting with Plug and Play, presenting their vision at events, and meeting prospective clients from their global network.
Galileo Protocol is reinventing the on-chain luxury e-commerce space. They are developing a tokenization platform that utilizes blockchain technology to provide proof of ownership and authenticity to luxury enterprises with physical non-fungible tokens (pNFTs).
The platform has just been accepted to the Plug and Play accelerator program for 2024! This is a massive achievement that has been spurred on by the launch of their $LEOX token on Fundrs last year, receiving support and growing within the Nexera Ecosystem, to being able to pitch at the Plug and Play Silicon Valley Summit and connecting with a global network of tech leaders. The team is now preparing for its next exciting growth phase!
Arkefi recently sold out its capital raise and launched its $RKFI token on Fundrs in under 4 hours. They are key infrastructure clients integrated with Nexera from the start. Their platform is built on the Nexera Protocol, and they utilize NexeraID to finance art in Web3 compliantly. Last year, Plug and Play highlighted Arkefi in a crypto talk webinar with founder and CTO Matthijs de Vries. Since then, they have been featured at Plug and Play events and exposed to the extensive Plug and Play network.
Nuklai is an innovative Layer 1 blockchain infrastructure that hosts a collaborative data ecosystem fueling the next generation of AI and large language models (LLMs) with world-class data. The capital raise and token launch of their $NAI token sold out in less than four minutes, overwhelmed with the demand — Fundrs opened up the sale for another two rounds, with the company raising an additional $2M. Since then, they have featured in the Plug and Play ecosystem and have connected with other start-ups to expand their vision.
Plug and Play Event in Silicon Valley Sees NexeraID, Brillion, and Nuklai Take Centre Stage
At the last Plug and Play Silicon Valley Summit in December 2023, NexeraID, Brillion, and Nuklai were represented by their teams and led by Founder and CTO Matthijs de Vries. The event focused on how Nexera’s tech stack could leverage non-custodial wallets, like NexeraID and Brillion, to facilitate cross-border payments and remittances, leverage blockchain and tokenization capabilities to make supply chains more transparent and simplify trade and management of carbon credits on-chain.
Matthijs also delivered a keynote to an engaging audience, discussing the maturation of regulation and compliance within Web3. Here, he highlighted how cryptographic methods like zero-knowledge proofs will define the next generation of identity and compliance solutions, enabling the transformative potential of tokenization.
To cap off an excellent event for Nexera and its key ecosystem partners, Matthijs accepted the Plug and Play Crypto & Digital Assets Corporate Innovation Award on behalf of Nexera. This was a great honor for the team and reflects Plug and Play’s belief and support for Nexera. It has been a very busy two years for the relationship, and this award and continued collaboration are making huge strides in pushing innovation forward in Web3 and its important startup ecosystem.
Founder and CTO Matthijs de Vries accepted a corporate innovation award from Plug and Play in Silicon Valley last year.
Nexera and Plug and Play Not Slowing Down their Mission for Innovation in Digital Asset Space and High Growth Areas
Nexera remains a prominent blockchain authority within Plug and Play’s network. Their upcoming European events, held in Nexera’s home country, will play pivotal roles in fostering innovation across continents.
Nexera’s dedication to driving innovation is evident through its strong ties with industry innovators and a roster of promising start-ups set to leverage Fundrs. This sets the stage for exciting collaborations in the latter half of 2024. Nexera’s Founder and CEO, Rachid Ajaja, will lead a workshop on tokenization for top industry figures at Plug and Play’s 2024 Silicon Valley June Summit.
The collaboration is integral in connecting budding start-ups to web3 communities and users. Look out for some very exciting updates between the two ecosystems this year.
