Would an incubator actually take you?

A rule-based screen that assesses your project the way an incubator's first-pass review would, and states exactly why it arrived at that assessment.

No. This runs a transparent, rule-based scoring engine against what you submit and your live website. Every point is explainable.

If you're not signed in, your submission is processed to generate the assessment and isn't stored afterward. If you are signed in, the scan is saved to your account so you can revisit it on your profile page (sign out at any time to stop that). Payment details are handled entirely by Stripe; we never see or store card information.

Because incubators are. An inflated score that doesn't survive real diligence isn't useful to you.

Most accelerators expect a working MVP, at least one real user or customer, a full-time founding team, and a specific plan for what their money and network unlock. Missing most of those usually means an incubator, which works with earlier, often pre-product ideas, is the better fit for now.

An incubator takes early, often pre-product ideas and helps them get built, usually without taking equity. An accelerator takes a project with a working product and pushes it toward a fundable raise over a fixed few months, usually for equity.

Most incubators are free or grant-funded and take no equity. Most accelerators take roughly 3-10 percent: Y Combinator's standard deal is $500K for about 7 percent, Techstars is closer to $120K for 6 percent. A few programs, like MassChallenge, take 0 percent.

On-chain traction over vanity metrics: TVL, daily active wallets, real transaction volume, not follower counts. A named, technically credible team. A live product or testnet, not just a whitepaper. A security audit, or a credible plan to get one before mainnet. And a real path to non-speculative revenue, not just token appreciation.

If your protocol is live and holds user funds, yes. Most reviewers ask about it directly at the first screen, and not having an answer is one of the fastest ways to get passed on. Pre-mainnet, having an audit booked or a clear plan for one is usually enough.

Investors and accelerators are screening for the same things whether or not they say it out loud: a named, credible team, a product with real substance, a clearly defined market and customer, traction appropriate to your stage, and materials that hold up to scrutiny. That's exactly what this assessment scores, for free.

The underlying bar is the same across sub-sectors; the evidence differs. A DeFi protocol needs TVL and an audit. A DePIN project needs real hardware or node operators, not just a token model. An RWA project needs a named custodian and real off-chain collateral. A restaking protocol needs to state plainly what it's actually securing. Submit your project above and the assessment checks for what applies to your sector.

The same bar as any AI startup, plus one crypto-specific check if your agent touches on-chain funds: describe the model, agent loop, or inference pipeline in plain language, not just as 'AI-powered'. If the agent holds or trades user funds, expect the same audit expectation as any custodial protocol.

Five things, in order: a real, named team; a product with actual substance; a clearly defined market and customer; traction that fits your stage; and site and docs that hold up under scrutiny. Weak on any one of those, and that's where the rejection comes from.

Start with the free assessment above: submit your site, docs, team, and blurb, and you get a 0-100 score with the specific gaps a real incubator would flag, plus what to fix first.