Milestone-gated accelerator funds two AI startups with pre-seed commitments — the first founders selected through its Have Fund hacker house.
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, June 17th 2026, ZEX PR WIRE — Zemyth, a milestone-gated accelerator for early-stage technical founders, today announced its first accelerator cohort, backing two startups — Afferens and Schism — with milestone-based pre-seed funding. The two companies are the first founders selected through Zemyth’s Have Fund 1.0 hacker house, a four-day, four-night intensive held in May 2026.
Rather than a single shared round, the announcement marks a cohort: each startup is funded independently as a separate pre-seed commitment, with capital released against an execution calendar rather than disbursed upfront. The structure reflects Zemyth’s thesis that early-stage capital should follow demonstrated progress.
“Milestone-gated capital means the structure does the diligence itself — so we can back founders earlier and easier than anyone else,” said Rain Chai , Co-founder of Zemyth and Tech Director of ZEMU VC, the venture firm backing the program. “Faris and Hiromasa shipped working products in days; that’s the bar.”
Afferens: verified physical-world context for AI agents
Afferens, founded by Faris Irfan (Founder & CEO), is building a hardware-agnostic, MCP-native API that gives AI agents verified physical-world context — starting with vision, with spatial, acoustic and environmental rolling out — before they act. Unlike perception tools that are input-only, Afferens is built with an actuation layer that lets agents send commands back to physical nodes, and is designed to install directly inside AI development environments such as Claude Code, Cursor and Windsurf.
“AI agents are getting smarter, but they’re still acting half-blind to the physical world,” said Faris Irfan, Founder & CEO of Afferens. “We give them verified context — what’s actually there — before they make a move. Zemyth’s milestone model fits how we build: prove it, then scale it.”
Schism: a cross-domain divergence engine for independent traders
Schism, founded by Hiromasa (Founder), is a cross-domain divergence engine for independent traders. It flags, in real time, when independent signals — Polymarket odds, on-chain flow, social sentiment, centralized-exchange positioning, equities and macro — disagree on the same narrative, helping traders spot mispricing before price moves. Where most tools each track a single source, Schism is built to watch all six at once and surface the moment they conflict, building a proprietary labeled dataset of how cross-domain divergences resolve.
“Edge comes from seeing disagreement before the market resolves it,” said Hiromasa, Founder of Schism. “Schism watches six domains at once and surfaces the moment they diverge. Zemyth backed the idea when it was still a prototype — that early conviction is rare.”
About the cohort and the Have Fund model
Both founders were selected through Have Fund 1.0, Zemyth’s flagship hacker house — a four-day, four-night intensive in May 2026 that brought founders together to turn raw ideas into fundable, working products. The inaugural edition selected six founders, with two — Afferens and Schism — advancing to pre-seed funding.
Zemyth runs a six-month, milestone-gated program for pre-seed founders at the proof-of-concept and MVP stage across Southeast Asia, structured around outcome-based milestones — releasing capital against an execution calendar rather than upfront.
About Zemyth
Zemyth is a milestone-gated accelerator backing early-stage technical founders across Southeast Asia, supported by ZEMU VC. Through a six-month program, Zemyth provides pre-seed capital in outcome-based stages — released against an execution calendar rather than upfront — alongside hands-on support through its Have Fund hacker house. Learn more at zemyth.app or follow zemyth.app and zemyth.human on Instagram.
About Afferens
Afferens is building a hardware-agnostic, MCP-native API that gives AI agents verified physical-world context — starting with vision, expanding to spatial, acoustic and environmental — with an actuation layer that lets agents send commands back to physical nodes. Founded by Faris Irfan. Learn more at afferens.com.
About Schism
Schism is a cross-domain divergence engine for independent traders, surfacing real-time disagreement across Polymarket, on-chain flow, social sentiment, centralized-exchange positioning, equities and macro so traders can spot mispricing before price moves. Founded by Hiromasa. Learn more at schism.app.
Media Contact:
Rain Chai
zemyth.app
