Web3 venture capital firm Hashed is launching Vibe Labs, a program for very early-stage founders who use artificial intelligence as a core development tool. Applications will be accepted from Feb. 1 to Feb. 19.

Hashed said as the use of AI-based tools becomes more advanced, to the level of a co-founder, more teams are actively using AI even before incorporation or fundraising to build products and quickly improve them based on user responses. Hashed said it views this not as a change that simply makes development easier, but as a shift that fundamentally changes the speed of turning ideas into products and validating markets.

The company said Vibe Labs carries on the intent of Hashed Labs, which it ran in 2019. Hashed Labs discovered very early-stage teams based on blockchain games and provided investment and acceleration, supporting Sky Mavis and The Sandbox.

Hashed explained that if blockchain has aimed for a "protocol economy without intermediaries," vibe coding is a trend that reduces "execution intermediaries" in the product development process. It said the two technologies use different tools but share a direction in which even small teams can create value in global markets.

Unlike typical bootcamps or startup programs, Vibe Labs operates by completing investment execution at the same time it announces the final selected teams, and then onboarding them into the program. During the program, teams continue to run their products in a production environment and are assessed based on actual operational data such as deployment history and pace of improvement, rather than documents or presentations.

Vibe Labs Seoul edition will hold an offline entry session in Seoul on Jan. 30. Applications will be accepted from Feb. 1 to Feb. 19, and individuals or teams can submit a product URL and demo along with a brief description.

Hashed Chief Executive Seojun Kim (김서준) said, "Vibe Labs is not support for coding skills, but a process of finding and supporting people who can judge what is worth building and push that choice all the way to the end of the global market." He said, "Execution is open to anyone, but the sense and responsibility to set direction and control quality still belong to founders. Vibe Labs was set up to help builders with that sense experiment faster on the basis of trust and connections, learn in shorter cycles, and compete with the world in their own language."