Draper University announced the launch of the Apex Growth Accelerator — a 10-week in-person residency program in Silicon Valley, created in partnership with the Cardano Foundation and Orion Fund to scale early-stage Web3 startups. Offering up to $70,000 in startup capital in exchange for a target equity stake of 3.5%, this residency is specifically designed for investment-ready teams building on the Cardano network. Applications are open until September 1, with the core in-person phase of the program beginning October 12 at the Draper University campus in San Mateo.
The accelerator focuses on high-growth financial segments, particularly Real World Asset (RWA) tokenization, institutional Decentralized Finance (DeFi), and enterprise-grade blockchain infrastructure.
"These are no longer separate categories," said Byron Murphy, Head of Growth at Cometa Labs, Draper Dragon's in-house venture studio. "RWA tokenization and institutional DeFi are increasingly becoming the infrastructure through which consumers access, own, and trade assets."
Murphy noted that moving traditional asset classes — such as securities, commodities, and physical assets — onto the blockchain removes barriers and reduces costs. "We have moved past proving that tokenization works. The question now is what can be built on top of it," Murphy said. "The next wave of adoption will happen at the intersection of traditional finance (TradFi) and DeFi, and we want to invest in that transition right now."
While Draper Dragon remains interested in consumer-facing Web3 applications, representatives emphasized that the priority of the current program is building the foundational infrastructure for technology adoption in the institutional sector and the mass financial market.
The Case for an In-Person Accelerator
Contrary to the industry trend towards fully remote programs, Draper University requires founders to undergo the core 10-week residency on-site, with the option for an additional four-week extension afterward.
"We've always emphasized in-person format because we consistently see it provides a completely different level of intensity," said Daria Nikolaeva, Head of Growth and Marketing at Draper University. "Founders are surrounded by people who push them, motivate them, and give honest feedback... When you gather a community of high-performing people in one building, they naturally push each other to move faster."
Nikolaeva emphasized that physical proximity is crucial for distributed decentralized teams, allowing founders to make decisions faster and accelerate relationship-building with investors, which typically takes months in a remote setting.
The program plans to graduate a cohort of 10 companies, culminating in a Demo Day presentation session before Web3 venture funds and institutional investors. However, program representatives insist that the number of graduates is not the primary measure of success.
"Graduating 10 companies is a starting point, not the end goal," said Aaliyah Barker, Program Manager at Draper University. "For us, success starts with the founders themselves: are they raising capital, are they acquiring customers, and are they building companies that continue to grow six or twelve months after the program ends?"
Barker noted that unlike accelerator models based on grants, the program's equity model directly ties founder outcomes to the ecosystem's long-term health, aiming to increase Cardano's Total Value Locked (TVL) and on-chain activity over time. "Because it's equity, the real return is in creating long-term value," Barker said. "The goal represents one continuous chain: founders raise capital and grow their businesses, that growth fuels further economic and on-chain activity, and successful companies ultimately create value that can flow back into the ecosystem."
