After the Accelerator: Splash
For all the hype around cryptocurrency like bitcoin, it can be hard to know how to actually use it. That’s where Splash comes in: this team, founded by Yale students and a recent grad, aims to offer users an intuitive banking platform that makes it easier to spend cryptocurrency anywhere on the internet.
After participating in CITY’s Accelerator during the 2017-2018 academic year, they’re currently preparing for a product launch. We caught up with the Splash team to hear about their progress and what’s next.
Where did the idea for Splash come from, and what motivated your team to build this idea into a startup?
Our founding team became interested in cryptocurrency almost two years ago. We spent roughly a year diving into the space, investing in various currencies, and becoming experts about blockchain, the technology that underlies cryptocurrencies. Through our research, we discovered that while there are a variety of services that allow people to invest in cryptocurrencies, there is a glaring absence of user-friendly ways to spend cryptocurrency.
Your team participated in CITY’s Accelerator last year. What did you work on or learn while in the Accelerator?
The CITY Accelerator helped us refine our initial ideas into a viable business. The first part of the Accelerator emphasizes the importance of building in response to an existing problem, introduces the importance of a minimum viable product (MVP), and teaches best practices for achieving product market fit. Without these insights, Splash would not be where it is today.
Tell me about where Splash is now and the product you’ve built.
The Splash ecosystem is made up of three key components: Splash Wallet, Splash Spend, and Splash Store. Splash Wallet is a non-custodial, app-based, multi-currency wallet for blockchain-based value. Splash Wallet stands at the center of our offering, and we are currently getting early user feedback on a private beta version of the application. The Splash browser extension, Splash Spend, allows users to spend cryptocurrency out of their Splash Wallet anywhere online. This is a major differentiator because right now, people with cryptocurrency can only spend their “digital cash” at merchants that will accept it, but with Splash Spend, they will be able to spend it anywhere. Splash Store is a physical terminal, similar to a next-gen crypto ATM, that will allow people to deposit and withdraw physical cash from their Splash Wallet. We envision Splash Store as a vital onramp to the digital economy for the nearly two billion people that have access to the internet, but not bank accounts.
What’s next for Splash? How do you envisioning it growing or evolving?
We are currently in the midst of our seed fundraising round and are busy building out the rest of our product offering. We are just coming out of “dark mode,” so we are excited to get more feedback about Splash Wallet as we move toward launch! Lastly, we are actively talking with potential strategic partners that will roll out our technology across their user bases. Ultimately, Splash will be the best way for anyone to spend their blockchain-based value, and it has the potential to provide crucial financial infrastructure for millions of unbanked people in the developing world.
Learn more about Splash here.
This Q&A is part of After the Accelerator, a new series that catches up with teams who have gone through CITY’s Accelerator to learn about their progress, lessons, and more. Look out for more stories in the series in the coming weeks and months.