Innovation can exist only at a specific equilibrium of insiders and outsiders. A perfect mixture of new ideas and old. They are the oxygen in the greenhouse for delicate plants and ideas, providing fresh air, zeal, and dynamism. In this metaphor, the Internet is the great oxygen concentrator of the world, because it’s a hierarchy buster. It takes in everyone, and with the right parameters, can sift and highlight truly exceptional companies and people. It allows any one, from any where, during any time to build a lucrative business.
Pioneers consistently raise follow-on funding, so it seems to be working. But the success isn’t ours; it’s a byproduct of the Internet. We’re just trying to crank up the speed of the oxygen concentrator.
We're excited about the latest cohort, building everything from a crypto creator economy to social web browsing:
Starview - Christopher Chen
Social web browsing
People still browse the web in isolation. Starview is a new social layer that persists horizontally across the surface of the web, where you can embed text and audio comments anywhere for anyone to engage with.
The Starview experience is achieved with a browser extension, a mobile app that is, in essence, its own browser, and a JS-injecting proxy server that lets you navigate without need of either. In the future, Starview will enable you to passively view the web with everyone else in real time, all the time.
No More Green Screen - Kai Christensen
Automatic video background remover
AI programs already outcompete green screens when removing backgrounds in still photography. That jump has to be made for video. No More Green Screen is an AI-powered video background remover that eliminates the cost of operating green screens.
Whereas green screens must be properly lit, smoothed, mounted, and provide full set coverage, No More Green Screen lets you shoot anything anywhere, no equipment required. It’ll do for indie filmmakers what Blender did for animators, providing the tools to create cutting-edge VFX from home.
Tomo HQ - Nico Ferreyra, Victor Papyshev
Instant audio chat for remote teams
Despite a year-long global experiment in remote cooperation, no single tool has solved presence for distributed teams. Tomo HQ is the latest innovation, tackling serendipity with an audio-based, one-click solution.
Technology is far enough along that spontaneous collaboration and quick brainstorms ought to be easy from afar. But Zoom and Google Meets remain clunky default choices. Tomo equips teams with the ability to schedule, start, and join audio rooms instantly and without breaking flow.
Coinvise - Jenil Thakker
Crypto creator economy
Countries have currencies, so too should Internet creators and communities. Coinvise allows individuals and digital collectives to easily mint, distribute and exchange their own Ethereum-based currency.
Coinvise eliminates the complexity of building on the blockchain yourself by providing an easy-to-use self-serve API that integrates with existing platforms. Tokens are freely minted, can be transferred in a fraction of the time, and allow you to custom-build your own economic and governance structures from scratch.
Ethi - Michael Jelly, Oscar King
Personal data OS
There's no clear way for individuals to analyze how Google and Facebook use their personal data, except scrolling through a data dump alongside a lengthy privacy policy. Ethi analyzes and synthesizes that information for you.
As part of the Ethi platform, users also have access to TraceErase, a browser extension that allows you to delete your data from websites in a single click, sidestepping the legal and manual work typically required.
If finding the next 2,000 Pioneer companies sounds interesting to you, shoot us a note this week. We're actively looking for an engineer and designer: team@pioneer.app.