EMURGO is excited to welcome Honeycomb, one of our latest batch members of the dLab/EMURGO startup accelerator in 2020.
What is Honeycomb?
Honeycomb is an API marketplace that links blockchain-based smart contracts to the datasets they need to create meaningful, real-world applications.
Honeycomb works by connecting premium API data providers to decentralized oracles. This makes the API available for smart contracts without a centralized point of failure, which is one of the unique properties made possible by utilizing blockchain technology. On the Honeycomb API marketplace, smart contract developers can browse and access a wide library of APIs from various different categories. Through an easy-to-use interface, connecting smart contracts to the data that developers need is made extremely simple.
Why Should Cardano Developers Care About Honeycomb?
Distributed applications (dApps) that use smart contracts rely on datasets from around the world. APIs deliver this data. With the upcoming release of Goguen, (the phase of Cardano’s development which will launch smart contract capabilities) APIs are extremely important. Data types from Honeycomb-listed APIs include: market data for both traditional assets and crypto, forex rates, weather data, flight data, city and population data, sports scores and much more. These are necessary for Cardano dApp developers to create distributed applications in areas such as DeFi, insurance, trade finance, sports betting, or any data-rich dApp that requires data of events that happen outside of the blockchain that host the smart contracts.
Honeycomb estimates that over 80% of all feasible smart contract use cases can be covered by the data they help provide. Honeycomb is aiming to support the Cardano blockchain with the availability of APIs after the launch of smart contracts.
dLab/EMURGO Offers Technical & Business Mentoring to Increase Value
dLab/EMURGO’s guidance has been instrumental to helping the Honeycomb team grow and develop. According to Founder & CEO Heikki Vänttinen,
“dLab and EMURGO have a wealth of knowledge on the challenges we face in making these novel smart contract use-cases possible, so they’ve been able to help us a lot along the way, both through asking the right technical questions and giving solid advice from the perspective of experienced builders in this space.”
“We definitely feel like we took home not only a lot of knowledge, but also some valuable contacts that can help us realize the potential of what we’re building with Honeycomb.”
Meet The Honeycomb Team
Honeycomb’s organization consists of experts from a wide range of disciplines, including decentralized software development, business development and research, all with the common goal to assist the adoption of blockchain-based smart contracts by the mainstream business world.
- Founder & CEO Heikki Vänttinen is originally from Finland and currently lives near Munich, Germany. He started his career in marketing and got into blockchain around 2017. He was previously the CMO of Zippie – a mobile blockchain-based rewards platform.
- Burak Benligiray, Co-founder & CTO, has a PhD in Electrical & Electronics Engineering and leads the technical development of the Honeycomb project.
- Greg Fette, VP of Operations, worked in tech consulting at Cognizant, before joining Honeycomb. Greg’s responsibilities include managing daily operations and business development.
- Dave Connor, VP or Business Development, who leads Honeycomb’s business development efforts.
Also on-board are Andre Ogle who is an experienced software engineer and developer, and Tamara Sabbagh, a UI & UX developer with a BA in Art & Technology from Ohio State University. The team is fully decentralized and operates from different countries around the globe.
Conclusion
Honeycomb is a talented startup that brings a unique solution to developers and aims to add significant value to blockchains through APIs. This will be achieved by bridging the gap between data providers and smart contract developers. If you’re a smart contract developer that likes to push the boundaries of what is being built in the blockchain space, check out honeycomb.market. Also if there’s a data source you need for a use-case you’re building, but can’t find it listed on the marketplace, email Honeycomb at api@clcg.io, and they will do their best to make it available for you. To learn more about Honeycomb, you can follow them on Twitter.
As a global blockchain solutions provider & a founding entity of Cardano, EMURGO is here to guide you through your blockchain needs, whether you are seeking technical solutions development, investment, educational courses, and/or assistance with developing a business idea.
