Grants & Funding
Do you have an idea for a project within the NEAR Ecosystem or would like to develop a tool that would benefit the NEAR ecosystem? The Grants program offers a pool of capital that can be deployed to develop the NEAR ecosystem.
NEAR Foundation Grants Program
Overview: The NEAR Foundation launched the Grants Program at the start of 2021 with the mission to bootstrap the NEAR ecosystem with high quality projects. For more information please visit the Grants Program Strategy post.
Main Objectives
Provide funding to accelerate the growth of the NEAR ecosystem and broader community
Support the development of necessary and value add infrastructure / tooling to support continued innovation
Attract and reward a diverse set of open source driven projects and developers that build on NEAR
Note, that it doesn't have to be a startup to get funded! We have a number of ways that people solving important problems in their communities or in the world in general are getting funded even if they are not building a product or not planning to turn it into a business.
The Grants Program deploys non-equity capital in check sizes from $5K - $500K primarily in the form of NEAR tokens. Allocations are usually prior to a formal investment round (series seed / A), but explore later stage allocations with high strategic value. If you are a later stage startup, please also scroll down to Other funding programs below.
What is the Process for Obtaining a Grant?
If you believe that your project benefits the ecosystem within one of the focus areas (see the list of focus areas below) we would like to invite you to apply for a grant
You can directly fill out a grant application in the following categories:
Additional information regarding our grants program can be found on : https://near.org/grants/ Or contact grants@near.foundation for specific questions.
Currently the Grants Program is focused on the below areas within the ecosystem:
Infrastructure tools / features
Wallets
Discovery tool for staking
On/off ramp platforms (self-contained apps)
Asset management interface (FTs & NFTs)
Wallet SDK
Wallet javascript SDK
Active research / monitoring on state of EVM contracts
Aurora Integrations
Aurora integration explorer
RPC service providers
Native products / projects focused ecosystem development
Creator driven NFT marketplaces
Music / Art creators with meaningful existing followings
Marketplaces geared towards community development in specific regions
Marketplaces utilizing rainbow bridge integrations
DeFi focused projects
Primitive tooling & products which are tiered in the below framing
Automated market makers, oracles, DEXs
Native stablecoins, generalized lending, insurance
Derivatives, synthetic assets
Impactful educational initiatives or programs
Initiatives focused on onboarding new devs into the NEAR ecosystem
Content and tools that allow devs to be self-serve and be successful
Developers, designers and NEAR enthusiasts interested in bringing new ideas and energy to inspire students
High caliber devs with ability to encourage other communities to build on NEAR
Opportunistic Strategic Grants – capital deployments focused on unique value creation / community development scenarios
Meta Grants – grants to entities which then deploy capital via their own model (e.g. DAOs, accelerators)
Ecosystem MVP – award major contributors to the community / ecosystem with a one-off grant
Other funding programs: Alongside the NEAR Foundation Grants Program, we also provide funding to a variety of other projects through the below structures:
NEAR Community Fund
Open Web Collective Fund
NEAR Asia Fund
Cypherpunk Guild
DAO Ecosystem
Overview of options:
The NEAR Community Fund
Overview: NEAR Community Fund is a pool of NEAR tokens available to ecosystem participants who submit proposals to an official governance structure. It was initially capitalized after the 2020 token sale with 1.5M USD and 1.5M NEAR (details available here).
The strategy is to promote development of the NEAR ecosystem by developing and growing a network of interconnected organizations. Our team champions the creation of many DAOs that provide a community-driven alternative to NEAR Foundation Grants or Venture Capital.
Background: The NEAR Community Fund was launched in a private forum category in November 2020, and the discussions were made public in February 2021. Since then, we transitioned from a Community Council to Sputnik DAOs, governed by the NEAR community.
Investment Focus / Thesis: We intend to empower communities that nurture active contributors, who diligently make the most essential funding decisions to further develop meaningful solutions.
NEAR Community Fund provides financial resources to community-driven initiatives, which emerge organically to support projects building on NEAR. This funding process is governed by the Community Squad DAO Council.
Allocations are aimed at funding new or small projects looking to shape ideas into actions, driving adoption of NEAR-powered apps and rewarding Guilds and Contributors that offer their skills and experience to help useful projects find product-market fit.
Stage / Size of Investment: We believe that single payouts from our Community Fund should not exceed 50,000 NEAR. Any project or initiative that requires more than this amount will be passed on to the NEAR Foundation Grants Program.
Contact Info: community@near.org
Website: https://www.sputnik.fund/#/dao/communitysquad.sputnikdao.near
Open Web Collective (OWC)
Overview: Open Web Collective (OWC) is an early-stage blockchain venture fund and seed accelerator, powered by NEAR Protocol. OWC aims to reimagine how the next wave of applications will be built using open technologies.
Starting a company is hard. And worse, decentralized app (dApp) development and adoption are even harder, with many barriers — technological, legal, and regulatory — what it means to be a founder in crypto is mystifying, ever-changing, and nascent. The goal of OWC is to remove the hurdles of web 3.0 company building and make the journey into the blockchain revolution easier for promising builders.
Investment Focus / Thesis: OWC accelerator and programs looks for teams in the pre-seed or seed-stage —you have a startup with a few users, or you're early in your entrepreneurial journey and recently launched a prototype. OWC fund is industry, protocol, and stage agnostic and we’re excited to learn about new projects across the ecosystem.
Stage / Size of Investment: pre-seed or seed stage companies / projects
Contact Info: fund@openwebcollective.com
Website: https://www.openwebcollective.com
NEAR Asia Fund
Overview: A global early stage crypto focused venture fund. Focused on supporting projects and business building within the NEAR ecosystem (native, aurora, octopus, and more in the future).
Investment Focus / Thesis: Focused on investments in DeFi, NFT, social, and gaming. The fund is uniquely positioned to build partnerships and value between China and US / Europe based ecosystems. The team offers in-house services to help drive growth and scaling for portfolio companies: GTM strategy, marketing / community building, Tokenomics & Liquidity strategy, and developer support.
Stage / Size of Investment: pre-seed or seed stage companies / projects
Contact Info: amos@near.org
Website: TBD
Cypherpunk Guild
Overview: The Cypherpunk Guild funds projects in following areas:
Private transactions (including every aspect of DeFi with more privacy).
DAO/governance technology (including private voting).
Messaging and social networks.
However, other innovative and surprising privacy and Cypherpunk related projects are potentially fundable, see the website for details or get in touch.
Contact Info: info@cypherpunkguild.org
Website: https://cypherpunkguild.org
DAO Ecosystem
DAOs are independent funding entities which service specific niches.
The core DAO contract on NEAR is sputnik, which is a highly versatile core contract that has launched an ecosystem of DAOs which support a wide range of activities. The reference repo for NEAR DAOs is located at https://github.com/near-daos.
Versions: 1. Sputnik Version 1 is similar to Moloch DAO on Ethereum. 2. Version 2 (as of Aug 2021 shipped and undergoing security review) is more flexible than anything out there (early spec). The beta is available for viewing here.
This is a growing list of DAOs by category, but see the Sputnik.fund index for a live listing of the 200+ DAOs on NEAR:
For Creators
Createbase, for Mintbase x NEAR creators
NEAR Arts DAO, A DAO with the mission of enabling cryptoart community growth initiatives. Join the discord: https://discord.gg/KxnbNC6D
Swagger DAO At SWAGGER DAO, we seek to evolve the integration of blockchain technology into the world of fashion.
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