How Axal got its start at an Easy A Hackathon

We all get our start somewhere, ours was at an Easy A Hackathon

If you haven’t met Dom and Phil Kwok, they are quite LITERALLY big ballers —> they are towering figures.

These two British chads run one of the biggest accelerators in crypto, with partners like Ripple and Stellar.

What is most important about the Easy A hackathons is that they are the starting point for many a big baller in crypto → a kind of entry to the slippery slope of becoming crypto pilled.

Such was the case for the Axal team and Ash.

It was actually at an Easy A hackathon that the original idea for Axal came into birth.

Early on an October Saturday morning in Spring 2022, Ash and his friends woke up and trudged over to the Smith campus center at Harvard for what they assumed would be another crypto hackathon.

After mulling around ideas for an hour, they landed on Lockbox: an automated treasury management system that would help them manage their shared crypto from previous hackathons (and hopefully others).

2 days of grinding resulted in an extremely exciting victory, surprising them all. What made this win so special, however, was that for the first time a sponsor (Telos) actually thought their product could be useful to them if further developed. Instead of moving on from the idea, the team used the prize money to travel to ETH Lisbon, build more, and attend another EasyA hackathon on campus (winning again)!

Fun fact, Ash was really close to just skipping that first hackathon because the walk to the venue from his dorm was 30 minutes (and he is definitely not a morning person + a late Friday night). Needless to say, we’re all thankful he didn’t sleep in.

Shortly after, the Axal team applied and got into a16z crypto’s startup school CSX.

Ever since then it has been a rocketship to say the least.

Fast forward to now: Ash got into a16z’s CSX program, raised $2million from the big ballers at CMT Digital, recruited a team with experience at Harvard Business School, the U.S. military, quant funds, and students of famed AI academics.

All in the effort of creating a new internet based on action.

Dom, Phil, and the rest of the Easy A team have been instrumental in their help with Axal’s rise, making introductions to prominent teams in crypto, promoting Axal’s content, and overall just being great friends.

We are lucky to have friends in such (literally) high places.