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Crypto demo day playbook: 5 steps, 14 teams, $200M

By NAUT Research · · 9 min read

$200M Crypto demo day raised by 14 teams in 1 NAUT-tracked accelerator portfolio, worked in 5 steps. Logos: Alliance DAO, Boba Network, Avail, 0G, Manta, BOB, Space and Time, Suilend, Spexigon, Bitlayer, inkfinance, Sleepagotchi, TiTi Protocol, Tensor, Starpower.

A crypto demo day is the closing week of an accelerator program, when the teams present to investors, and almost all of the value a visitor gets out of it is decided before the room opens and after it empties. NAUT tracks 193 portfolio companies behind 1 crypto accelerator, Alliance DAO, and this playbook runs 5 steps over 14 of those companies that together raised $200,000,000 across 14 dated rounds, all read from NAUT's database on 6 November 2026.

How this was built: on 6 November 2026, NAUT read every funding row where Alliance DAO is recorded as a backer. That is 202 round records at 193 distinct companies. 137 of the 193 carry 1 identical accelerator-typed row, the $350,000 check stored on NAUT's record of the program, and 46 of the 193 have a dated round beyond that check. Treat the $350,000 as an earlier program term rather than today's number: Alliance's own homepage states "$400k Funding, Immediate funding upon admission" (alliance.xyz). 7 of the 193 companies have no NAUT page of their own yet, so they cannot be opened or linked.

The 14 teams worked below are the 15 companies with the most complete NAUT records (an X handle, a logo, a stored description and a dated round), newest round first, minus 1 row left out for a reason of its own: the row stored under the slug "story-protocol" carries a company name that its own domain, X handle and description contradict, which makes it unsafe to print until the row is fixed. These 14 are a worked example, picked for record quality. They are not 1 admission batch, and Alliance's own site is where its named batches live.

Crypto demo day playbook: the 5 steps

The 5 steps run on 1 idea: the pitch is public and the preparation is not, so the advantage sits in knowing the round, the sector and the person before the slide goes up.

  • Pull the accelerator's portfolio first. Of 193 companies, only 46 have a dated public round, which tells you who is already fundable.
  • Cut the list on sector, because 140 of the 193 carry at least 1 sector tag and 53 do not.
  • Name a person per company. 12 of the 14 teams here have at least 1 current decision maker on NAUT's record, 53 people in total.
  • Ask about the round on file, with the amount and the date in your head.
  • Send the follow-up to a channel the person reads, which is rarely the form on the website.
How to work a crypto demo day in 5 steps
  1. Pull the portfolioAlliance DAO's NAUT page holds 202 round records at 193 companies, 46 with a dated round.
  2. Cut on sector52 of the 193 are tagged DeFi, 30 Infrastructure, 17 Payment, 16 RWA and 15 DEX.
  3. Name the person53 current decision makers sit on the 14 teams here, from Michael Heinrich at 0G to Rooter at Suilend.
  4. Ask about the roundAvail raised $43,000,000 in June 2024 and Boba Network $45,000,000 in April 2022.
  5. Follow up by channel6 of the 14 teams list a business development, growth, partnerships or ecosystem title, which is the warmer door.

Step 1: pull the portfolio before the invite goes out

Open the accelerator's NAUT investor page and read the portfolio as a list of rounds rather than a list of names. Alliance DAO's page carries 202 round records at 193 companies on 6 November 2026, and the useful split is that 46 of the 193 have a round with a public date on it. Those 46 are companies that have already closed money from outside the program, which changes what you can sell them and what you can ask them.

Step 2: cut 193 companies down to the ones you can sell to

Sector is the cheapest filter and NAUT holds it per company. Across the 193, the 5 biggest tags are DeFi at 52 companies, Infrastructure at 30, Payment at 17, RWA at 16 and DEX at 15. 140 of the 193 carry at least 1 sector tag, so a sector screen will silently drop 53 companies that have no tag yet. Read those 53 by hand or keep them in a second pile. A tag is a lead, not proof: open the company's own description before you put it on a call list.

Step 3: name the person, not the company

A company cannot answer a message. Of the 14 teams here, 12 have at least 1 current decision maker on NAUT's record and 53 people across the 14, so the median team gives you 3 or 4 names to choose between. Spexigon and TiTi Protocol have no person on NAUT's record, which makes their X account the only route NAUT can offer today. Pick on title: 6 of the 14 list someone whose title names business development, growth, partnerships or ecosystem, and those 6 are where a cold note has the shortest path.

Step 4: in the room, ask about the round on file

The 2 questions that separate you from the rest of the queue both come off the data: what has changed since the round, and what the money is being spent on. Carry the figure and the date. Avail is on NAUT with a $43,000,000 Series A announced 4 June 2024, 0G with a $35,000,000 pre-seed announced 26 March 2024, and Starpower with a $2,000,000 pre-seed announced the same day as Avail's Series A. Quoting the stored figure also lets the founder correct it, which is itself worth knowing.

Step 5: follow up on a channel the person reads

The follow-up window is the 72 hours while your face is still attached to your name. Send it to the person you picked in step 3, on the channel their NAUT page says NAUT holds, and reference the round you asked about. NAUT's person pages say which channels are on file per person, and the verified Telegram, email and LinkedIn values unlock on any paid plan, so you can start a 7-day trial and work the list the same week.

Which teams raised what before this crypto demo day set was picked?

The 14 teams below are sorted by the date of the round NAUT holds for them, newest first. The amounts total $200,000,000. Round carries the type, the amount and the announce date NAUT stores, and every name in the last column is the current title NAUT holds for that person.

Team Round Decision maker
Funding Round, $6.0M, 5 Dec 2024 , Founder
Funding Round, $3.5M, 7 Jun 2024 , CEO
Series A, $43.0M, 4 Jun 2024 , Co-founder
Pre-Seed Round, $2.0M, 4 Jun 2024 , Co-Founder
Seed Round, $10.0M, 27 Mar 2024 , Co-Founder and CTO
Seed Round, $5.0M, 27 Mar 2024 , Co-Founder
Pre-Seed Round, $35.0M, 26 Mar 2024 , CEO
Series A, $25.0M, 19 Jul 2023 Shumo Chu, Founder, no NAUT page yet
Seed Round, $3.0M, 7 Mar 2023 Richard Wu, Founder, no NAUT page yet
Seed Round, $3.5M, 17 Jan 2023 Alex Korotkov, Founder, no NAUT page yet
Seed Round, $5.5M, 4 Oct 2022 No person on NAUT's record
Seed Round, $10.0M, 28 Jul 2022 , Co-Founder
Funding Round, $3.5M, 11 Apr 2022 No person on NAUT's record
Series A, $45.0M, 5 Apr 2022 , Founder and CEO

Anyone listed can ask NAUT to remove their page at https://naut.so/legal/data-deletion.

1 row needs a word of its own. Manta sits on NAUT typed as an investor while the round record has Alliance DAO backing it as a portfolio company, so its page lives on the investor route even though it reads here as a team that raised.

How much had each team raised before the crypto pitch event?

Raised per team, the 14 rounds NAUT holds
  1. Boba Network$45M
  2. Avail$43M
  3. 0G$35M
  4. Manta$25M
  5. BOB$10M
  6. Space and Time$10M
  7. Suilend$6M
  8. Spexigon$5.5M
  9. Bitlayer$5M
  10. inkfinance$3.5M
  11. Sleepagotchi$3.5M
  12. TiTi Protocol$3.5M
  13. Tensor$3M
  14. Starpower$2M

3 rounds carry $35,000,000 or more and 8 of the 14 sit at $6,000,000 or below, so a room like this holds 2 very different conversations: a Series A team with a public valuation, and a seed team still spending its first cheque.

Who do you talk to at a crypto demo day?

Talk to the person whose title says they own the thing you are selling or buying. NAUT holds 53 current decision-maker roles across the 14 teams, which is every live role on those rows carrying a founder, chief, head, director, partner, VP or lead title on 6 November 2026. Avail and 0G are the deepest rows in this set, and Suilend, Tensor and Boba Network give you 2 names each.

6 of the 14 teams list someone whose title names business development, growth, partnerships or ecosystem. For a BD lead that title is the better first message, because it is a person paid to answer it. For a founder raising, the equivalent read is the other way around: the co-founder and CTO rows are the ones who will judge the technical fit of what you pitch, and 8 of the 14 teams list a co-founder or CEO by name above.

How many other investors were already in these 14 rounds?

NAUT holds 103 investor records besides Alliance DAO across these 14 rounds, covering 12 of the 14, and those records resolve to 86 distinct firms. 15 of the 86 appear on 2 or more of the 14 rounds, which is the signal worth acting on: a firm that already backed 2 teams in 1 accelerator portfolio is a firm that takes meetings from that portfolio. 2 of the 14 rounds carry no other investor on NAUT's record, which means NAUT holds none for them rather than that none exists.

NAUT's records for these 14 rounds do not flag which investor led, so read the lead off the announce coverage. The Sources list below links the coverage for the 5 rounds that were put to an outside source, and those pages name the leads.

What this crypto demo day playbook gives a BD team

  • The 46 companies with a dated round are the ones with budget signal, and 14 of them are worked above.
  • The 53 named people are the list. The 2 teams with nobody named need a different route.
  • The 86 co-investor firms are a second target list: they are already comfortable with this portfolio.
  • The sector tags cut 193 to a sellable handful, and 53 untagged companies need a manual read.
How a BD team can work this portfolio
  1. Start with the 46Only 46 of the 193 companies have a dated public round, so that is the funded end of the portfolio.
  2. Take 1 sectorDeFi at 52 companies and Infrastructure at 30 are the 2 biggest tags across the 193.
  3. Pick the warm title6 of the 14 teams list a business development, growth, partnerships or ecosystem person.
  4. Open the co-investors15 of the 86 firms on these rounds appear on 2 or more of the 14.
  5. Write the same week12 of the 14 teams have at least 1 named decision maker, so the note has an addressee.

Related reading on NAUT: Crypto accelerators: 74 startups in 6 cohorts, 21 in trading and Crypto conference networking: 5 steps, 844 decision makers.

Can you pull this data through the NAUT API?

Yes, and this article's whole data set comes out of 1 call: GET https://api.naut.so/v1/investors/alliance-dao returns the fund with its team and its portfolio, each row carrying the company, roundType, amountUsd, announceDate and isLead, which is every column of the table above. A team's own people come from GET https://api.naut.so/v1/projects/suilend, and a data call costs 5 credits, with Essential at $49 a month giving 3,000 credits (600 data calls); the calls are documented at naut.so/docs/api and the plans at naut.so/pricing. Verified Telegram, email and LinkedIn unlock on any paid NAUT plan, so start a 7-day trial to reach the 53 people named on these 14 teams.

Crypto demo day FAQ

What is a crypto demo day?

A crypto demo day is the closing event of an accelerator program, where the admitted teams present to investors. Alliance DAO runs 1 of them, and its own site invites founders to "Present your product to leading VCs, angels & experts" (alliance.xyz, read 6 November 2026); NAUT tracks 193 portfolio companies behind that program.

How to work a crypto demo day as a BD lead?

In 5 steps: pull the accelerator's portfolio (193 companies on NAUT for Alliance DAO), cut it on sector (52 DeFi, 30 Infrastructure), name a decision maker per company (53 across the 14 teams here), ask about the round NAUT already holds, then follow up on a channel that person reads. The 14 teams worked above raised $200,000,000 across 14 dated rounds.

Where can I find the founders and BD leads from a crypto accelerator portfolio, and their contact channels?

On NAUT. Each company has a page listing its current team, each person has a page saying which channels NAUT holds, and 1 API call, GET https://api.naut.so/v1/investors/alliance-dao, returns the whole portfolio with its rounds. The 14 teams in this article carry 53 named decision makers, 6 of the teams list a business development, growth, partnerships or ecosystem title, and verified Telegram, email and LinkedIn unlock on any paid NAUT plan, so start a 7-day trial to open them.

How much had these 14 crypto demo day teams raised?

$200,000,000 across the 14 dated rounds NAUT holds for them, read on 6 November 2026. The largest is Boba Network's $45,000,000 Series A of 5 April 2022 and the smallest is Starpower's $2,000,000 pre-seed of 4 June 2024.

Which sectors does this crypto accelerator portfolio work in?

Of the 193 companies NAUT tracks for Alliance DAO, 140 carry at least 1 sector tag: 52 are tagged DeFi, 30 Infrastructure, 17 Payment, 16 RWA and 15 DEX. 53 of the 193 have no sector tag on NAUT yet and need reading by hand.

Sources

  • NAUT's own database, read on 6 November 2026: every funding row where Alliance DAO is recorded as a backer (202 records at 193 companies), the sector tags on each company, the people with a current decision-maker title at the 14 teams, and the other investors recorded on the same 14 rounds.
  • Alliance's program terms and its demo day: its own homepage, which states "$400k Funding, Immediate funding upon admission" and invites founders to "Present your product to leading VCs, angels & experts" (alliance.xyz, read 6 November 2026). Its X account is @Alliance and its site is alliance.xyz.
  • 10 claims were put to outside sources for this article and 8 were used. 5 of the 14 rounds had their amount and date checked against the announce coverage: Avail (The Block, CoinDesk), 0G (The Block, SiliconANGLE), Boba Network (The Block, TechCrunch), BOB (CoinDesk) and Manta (CoinDesk, TechCrunch). The other 9 rounds were not put to an outside source, and their amounts and dates are NAUT's record alone.
  • 2 of the 10 claims were left out: 1 about how Alliance groups its portfolio on its own site, where the wording could not be found on the page fetched, and 1 comparing NAUT's stored program figure with the current one, which is handled in the data note above instead.

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