Enjinstarter

In 2021, backing a young crypto project usually meant trusting a Telegram group and a slide deck. Enjinstarter, founded that year in Singapore by Prakash Somosundram and Alvin Tang, set out to be the opposite - a place where blockchain games, metaverse worlds and, later, AI startups could raise money through Initial DEX Offerings (IDOs) with rules attached: identity checks, minimum liquidity, delays between sale and listing, and refund provisions when things went wrong.

The name is a tell. Enjinstarter began as one of the first launchpads built around the Enjin blockchain ecosystem, a hub for game developers experimenting with NFTs and in-game assets. But it did not stay a single-chain tool. Today it runs across six networks and describes itself as three things at once - an incubator, an accelerator and an advisory firm - for teams making the awkward jump from Web2 to Web3.

Then came the turn few saw coming: the same launchpad mechanics that once financed game tokens now finance mangrove conservation. That is the part worth understanding.

Almost everyone in crypto wants to launch a token. Far fewer want to do the work that makes a launch credible - tokenomics design, KYC compliance, community building, exchange listings, market making. Enjinstarter's pitch is that it handles that middle layer end to end. A team arrives with a game or an app; it leaves with a token sale, a community, and, ideally, a listing on an exchange like Binance, Gate.io, MEXC or OKX.

Access to those sales runs through the EJS token. Holders stake into a four-tier system - Galaxy, Universe, Metaverse and Multiverse - and the tier determines how large an allocation they can claim in a given IDO. It is a familiar launchpad structure, dressed in the language of scale: the more you stake, the further up the cosmos you climb.

In late 2023, Enjinstarter launched AYA, a climate-focused launchpad headquartered in Dubai. The idea reuses the company's core machinery - raising capital, gating access, building a community - and points it at sustainability. AYA is designed as a bridge, connecting retail investors, high-net-worth individuals and institutions with projects working on reforestation, nature credits, mangrove conservation and sustainable agriculture. One project in its pipeline focuses on tracking and rewarding the collection of used cooking oil.

The regulatory piece matters here. In December 2023, Dubai's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) granted AYA a conditional Virtual Asset Service Provider licence. It is not fully operational - the company still has to meet remaining conditions and localisation requirements - but it signals an intent to build climate finance inside a regulated crypto framework rather than around it.

On one side of the platform are early-stage founders - game studios, metaverse builders, NFT and AI teams, and now climate projects - who need capital, a community and a path to market. On the other are crypto investors, from retail token holders to institutions, who stake EJS to reach those deals early. Enjinstarter's job is to sit in the middle and make the exchange trustworthy.

It operates in a crowded field. Web3 launchpads such as DAO Maker, BullPerks, Seedify, Polkastarter and TrustPad chase the same founders and the same capital. Enjinstarter's differentiation is less about raw volume and more about breadth and curation: a spread across gaming, AI and climate, an investor-protection posture, and a regulated climate arm that most launchpad peers do not have. Its early bets on projects like ChainGPT, HyperGPT and SophiaVerse are the kind of track record it leans on.