Cracked Case Study: U Combinator
Accelerating Cross-Chain Interoperability
Our first cohort with Union proved Cracked Labs thesis, traditional grant programs and hackathons have failed. For long-lasting and volume-generating projects that impact the bottom line, teams are looking for more than grants and prize money. They are looking for ecosystems as willing to invest time into their team as they are to develop their product.
We partnered with Union to launch U Combinator - an accelerator for 30 teams through a 9-week incubator mirroring classic accelerators like Y Combinator in a bespoke, crypto-native format optimized for rapid iteration and ecosystem building.
Cracked Labs provided white glove mentorship support with weekly workshops, rapid prototyping sprints, MVP feedback sessions, and pitch practice, with the ultimate prize being Union Fellow status. Successful projects that earn this title went on to leverage Union’s 200,000+ active user base, liquidity incentives, and soon-to-be public mainnet launch. Pitch day culminated in 30+ VCs in attendance, with dozens of intros to Tier 1s made on behalf of projects.
Since then, Union Fellows have announced product launches on the EthCC mainstage, completed fundraising rounds, and launched new chains out of stealth.
Program Design
Goals: The program was designed with two primary goals in mind:
- Cross-Chain Innovation: Drive innovation by selecting teams building composable protocols and applications atop Union’s interoperability rails, rather than isolated, single-chain solutions. This ensures projects contribute to a wider network effect.
- Ecosystem Building: Establish a Union-centric ecosystem capable of sustained interoperability across multiple blockchains. Every project was encouraged to leverage Union’s infrastructure so that their advancements reinforced each other and Union’s overall vision. By the end, projects were organically signing partnerships with each other — proof of an aligned ecosystem emerging from the program.
Structure: The incubator was run as an intensive 9-week cohort:
- Cadence: A structured schedule of weekly workshops, prototyping sprints, MVP reviews, and pitch practice sessions. 1:1 communication with Cracked Labs’ team and mentors kept teams in a rapid build-measure-learn cycle.
- Cohort Size: 30 teams were selected for the first batch, a size deliberately chosen to balance diversity of ideas with a high mentor-to-team ratio. This smaller cohort (compared to some larger accelerators) enabled deeper one-on-one mentorship and hands-on guidance for each team.
Selection Criteria: U Combinator looked for teams that could maximize the program’s impact:
- Ecosystem Alignment: Simply being an excellent product was not enough. Teams were selected based on their product's alignment with Union’s interoperability vision and potential to work within the rest of the cohort.
- Technical Skill: Teams needed strong engineering talent and the ability to iterate quickly. Preference went to builders who could prototype new features or integrations in days, not weeks – critical in a 9-week sprint.
- Innovative Potential: Projects addressing compelling interoperability challenges or proposing novel cross-chain primitives were favored. The selection committee (Union core and Cracked Labs leaders) sought ideas that would push the envelope of what Union’s network can do.
- Founder Acumen: Just as important as tech was founder-product fit. We sought founders who had long-term visions for scaling companies with the skills and leadership to back it up. We actively filtered out founders only focused on securing grants.
Scope of Support: Teams in U Combinator received comprehensive support across key startup challenges:
- Technical Mentorship: We worked closely with Union’s core engineers to provide devrel guidance on integrating Union’s SDK and tooling.
- Product & UX: The goal was to achieve not just technical viability but also great developer and user experiences for cross-chain dApps. We sourced experts in UI, UX, and product to host workshops, provide feedback, and refine projects’ user impressions.
- Marketing & BizDev: The program facilitated go-to-market strategy workshops, pitch coaching, and warm introductions to partners within Union’s and Cracked Labs’ network. Teams learned how to position their products and play the growth game right in our current crypto landscape.
- Fundraising Prep: U Combinator culminated in a Demo Day pitch event. In preparation, teams went through multiple rounds of 1:1 practice sessions, pitch deck development, and coached on storytelling. They received candid feedback from Union, Cracked Labs, and industry experts to hone their presentations to an institutional standard. Teams left with polished pitches and often direct introductions to aligned investors.
Cohort Outcomes – Union Fellows
Each of the seven Union Fellows who emerged from the cohort exemplified a different pillar of Union’s interoperability vision.
Esprezzo
Product Focus: Evolving its no-code automation platform Dispatch into Esprezzo Cloud, a Web3-native cloud stack for blockchain data and workflows. This expansion targets enterprise clients’ needs for easy blockchain integration.
Sphinx
An institutional-grade on-chain commodities derivatives exchange called GCX (Global Commodities Exchange). Sphinx built a permissioned Layer-1 blockchain to serve as the base for 24/7 trading of real-world assets like oil, natural gas, and metals in futures or perpetual swap form.
Ensemble
A TypeScript-based AI-agent framework enabling autonomous on-chain service execution. Ensemble provides the infrastructure for deploying agents that can perform tasks and offer services on behalf of users.
https://x.com/EnsembleCodes/status/1931266126274814356
Conduct
Product Focus: A mobile-first Bitcoin sidechain optimized for stablecoin payments. Conduct turns smartphones into nodes, creating a globally decentralized network where users can send and receive stablecoins with near-instant finality. It’s essentially bringing a Lightning-like experience to stablecoins, but on a separate sidechain.
Nativerse
An “infinite-liquidity” hub for Bitcoin liquid staking tokens (LSTs) across Bitcoin Secured Networks (BSNs). Nativerse is building a platform to create and trade an unlimited variety of Bitcoin-based staking derivatives, unifying liquidity that is currently fragmented across different Bitcoin sidechains and protocols.
Thema
Omnichain exchange-traded products (ETPs) platform with built-in yield and automated arbitrage. Thema is creating structured financial products (like index funds or commodity baskets) that exist across multiple chains and automatically optimize yield for holders.
Hyperweb
A TypeScript-based multi-chain orchestration platform and virtual machine (VM). Hyperweb aims to let developers use familiar Web2 tools and languages to build cross-chain applications, abstracting away much of the complexity of interacting with different blockchain environments.
Round Up
Identifying flashy product ideas and writing them checks without support is a failed model. Cracked Labs set out to prove there is a better way to sustainably grow ecosystems while providing teams the support they actually need.
U Combinator, in just 9 weeks, fostered an aligned network of teams where collaboration occurred not just with Union, but between cohort projects. In the end, 7-figures of outside investment flooded into the fellows, and Union’s mainnet will go live with an exceptionally strong set of infrastructure and consumer applications to pave the way for future growth.