"Eyes Fixed, Patience Unlimited" | Agora x 5Y Capital: 2023 Supersonic Program Fall Cohort Kicks Off
The Supersonic Plan is open for applications year-round.
On July 22, the Fall 2023 Supersonic Program officially kicked off in Beijing. Having run previous cohorts in fully online and fully offline formats, this edition will blend both modes for all program activities.
RTE + X = Infinite Possibilities
With the latest wave of AI development, content production costs have dropped dramatically. More and more startups are integrating RTE into their products and technologies to meet rising user expectations for experience. Apple's Vision Pro launch this year sparked widespread discussion around spatial computing — with new algorithms and hardware, RTE enables better presentation of algorithmic outputs with lower latency, giving rise to more immersive virtual try-on, workplace, and design scenarios.
This fall's program received 188 targeted applications. After rigorous interviews and curriculum alignment discussions, 14 companies were admitted as the fifth cohort of Supersonic partners. Their focus areas span AIGC, education, low-code, mental wellness, physics engines, and more.
From this recruitment cycle, we're seeing AI + RTE push into more granular use cases with greater crossover into AR/VR/XR and developer tools.
AIGC is moving beyond broad entertainment applications into deeper verticals like education, legal services, and emotional companionship. The metaverse concept, hot for several years now, is expanding from generic virtual spaces into higher-interaction venues like livehouses. Meanwhile, founders are thinking about overseas markets and global positioning earlier in their journey.
Fall 2023 Supersonic Program: Breakdown of Admitted Companies by Sector
Entrepreneurship Is a Series of Encounters
Beijing saw heavy rain on July 22, but it didn't dampen the Supersonic partners' enthusiasm. The entire fall cohort showed up for the first offline session — RTE Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Use Cases.
The opening ceremony featured remarks from program sponsors Agora and 5Y Capital. Levi Liu, partner at 5Y Capital, shared observations on current entrepreneurial trends: more and more founders domestically and abroad are leveraging real-time interaction and large language models to drive innovation. Going forward, Supersonic, Agora, and 5Y Capital will provide more targeted cutting-edge curriculum and precise resource support. Louisa Cao, VP of Ecosystem at Agora, noted that any time is the best time to start a company. Whether AI and real-time interaction bring efficiency gains or experience improvements, the critical question is how to get partners and customers to recognize that value.
For the content sessions, Tony Zhao, founder and CEO of Agora, shared his latest thinking with the entrepreneurial partners. "Business and technological innovation will still create tremendous value. Shifts in cognition drive shifts in behavior, and that generates innovation," Tony said during the RTE entrepreneurship segment.
Yang Hui, head of Agora's Ecosystem Operations Center, and Lin Shuo, solutions architect at Agora, approached new use case discovery from theoretical innovation and practical implementation angles respectively. Even in today's AI explosion, the steady stream of emerging innovative applications makes clear that industry verticals will continue to fragment and subdivide to meet the experience demands of niche audiences.
LEGO Serious Play has been a staple icebreaker for Supersonic. Though the core methodology stays consistent, each cohort's different sectors and stages spark fresh ideas and questions during the hands-on building. As the program's warm-up exercise illustrates: with six identical bricks, no two people build the same duck. The same curriculum framework, optimized for each group, can yield uniquely relevant insights.
We Want to Give You Our Best
Going forward, all partners in the Supersonic ecosystem will accompany these companies through the three-month program and far beyond. We hope that in the months ahead, the fall cohort — supported by Supersonic and its partners — will gain not just technical support, investment mentorship, and deep ecosystem community engagement, but also a measure of warmth on the lonely, uncertain path of entrepreneurship.
Agora's ecosystem capabilities extend well beyond use case exploration and investment coaching to encompass AI-powered voice and beauty features, go-to-market and payment infrastructure for global expansion, and content co-creation capabilities spanning copyright and gaming — providing one-stop empowerment to help startup partners reduce costs and accelerate innovation.
The Supersonic Program accepts applications on a rolling basis year-round. If your startup is working with — or could work with — real-time interaction in any capacity, we'd love to chat. (The fall cohort has already launched; applications submitted now will enter the pipeline for spring. The spring cohort will officially begin in March next year, running from March through May.)
5Y Capital seeks out, supports, and inspires founders who journey alone, providing everything from spiritual backing to operational support. We believe that if the world starts believing in the "crazy" person others see, things will get interesting.
BEIJING · SHANGHAI · SHENZHEN · HONG KONG
