₳5m available
Proposals from ₳500k to ₳2m to ignite mainstream adoption
Scope:
Cardano adoption will explode once more mainstream marketing and venture acceleration partnerships are born.
Cardano Partners will fuel the fly-wheels of innovation and growth to ignite premium partnerships that benefit Cardano with exceptionally well-recognised leaders of industry.
This category will accept proposals from or involving Tier-1 partners to address one or more of the following objectives:
- Advertising, media, and marketing collaborations will bring mainstream attention geared to promote the Cardano blockchain
- EG Consortia of media partners made up of an advertising agency, content partners, and sports brand want to activate a 6 month campaign to attract new Cardano blockchain users
- Accelerators that will elevate high potential early stage and start up businesses, leveraging the Cardano blockchain, and their founders to a large network of professional investors and partners.
- EG Worldwide tech investment network that operates accelerator programmes wants to create a programme for entrepreneurial leaders building on Cardano
The expectation is that 3-5 highest quality projects will be awarded funding in this category.
Submission deadline for this category is extended until Nov 7, 2024 (end of day UTC) to allow for partnership forming and getting organized.
What we will not fund:
- Projects that are not geared towards the highest degrees of advertising, adoption, and co-marketing potential for the Cardano blockchain
- Using funds to purchase digital assets or liquidity for Cefi or Defi
- Using funds to purchase loans or other financial products
Eligibility requirements:
- Each applicant must have 2 years of proven track record in their area of business
- The applicant, individually or in conjunction with their consortium partners must generate at least $5m in revenue per annum
- Applicants who intend to match funding or make in-kind contributions should clearly state so in the project scope and budget section of their application
- The collaboration between the applicant and its partners shall be governed by terms to be agreed between the applicant and its partners
- In case of applications submitted by more than 1 applicant, one applicant must be appointed lead partner and that appointment confirmed by submission of powers of attorney signed by legally empowered signatories representing all the individual applicants
- Collaborations that cannot be confirmed by the applicant for the review panel by the time of the Fund 13 vote will not be eligible.*
- Up to 30% of the grant amount can be allocated to subcontracting costs including resources or services provided by businesses previously funded by Catalyst
- For example, an applicant under Objective 1 needs a technical partner to integrate the Cardano use case and may use up to 30% of the grant amount to contract the services of a business that previously been awarded a Catalyst grant.
- All proposals shall be subject to the Fund 13 rules and the grant agreement to be entered into between Catalyst FC as the grant-provider and the winning applicants.
- Funding may only be granted to proposals with a delivery plan of no more than 12 months.
- Instead of a community review, proposals in this category will be evaluated by a sub-committee composed of members from Intersect Marketing subcommittee, Cardano Foundation, Emurgo and Catalyst management with the highest potential proposals shortlisted for a final community vote. Only proposals approved by the community shall be funded.
* Evidence of an established relationship will be required to present during an interview for example with a Catalyst manager before the proposal is eligible to reach the ballot in June.
Process for submission and moderation to reach shortlist:
- Proposal submission for Cardano Partners category will be extended until Nov 7, 2024 (end of day UTC) to allow more lead time to engage partners
- As such, proposals in Cardano Partners will not be going through Community Review stage
- Cardano’s Intersect committees and founding entities will collaborate with Catalyst and provide a necessary pre-screening step to validate the quality and eligibility of the proposed project
- At least 7 individuals made up of Catalyst and Intersect committee members
- Catalyst manager will interview lead applicants to verify the partnership arrangement (to be permitted per NDAs)
- The sub-committee will meet to moderate and archive any ineligible proposals and arrive at a shortlist of proposals that have the highest potential for success and greatest confidence towards exceptional outcomes.
- A panel moderation session will have produced a shortlist
- The shortlist will be published and socialized with the community before voting begins
- The shortlist will be presented on the Fund13 ballot for community voting
- This endeavor is an experimental proof point and a valuable learning opportunity for similar or repeatable governance processes for Cardano in the future. In this case, experimenting with a different mechanic to reach a ballot via a committee decision of the final Cardano Partners shortlist.