Celo Foundation Grants - March and April cohort

Ecosystem Grants
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Hi everyone, we are pleased to announce the Celo Foundation grant recipients for the March and April 2022 cohort!

Congratulations to all the teams!

As we were delayed this time due to reviewers traveling with Celo Connect, we are combining the announcement for the two months here.

Key highlights

  • Growth in application numbers, with 60 applications in March & April compared to 28 for Jan & Feb.
  • Category wise, DeFi (26%), Community & Education (24%), Creator Economy (14%), and Blockchain Infrastructure (11%), CICO/Wallets (7%) form the majority of applications.
  • Launch of Celo Jura, a legal grants network to support builders on Celo.

Cash In Cash Out/ Wallets

  • Cobru a digital wallet and local gateway that supports international remittances and fintech companies
  • Coco Pago enables migrant workers to send money back home using cUSD.

Infra & Dev Tooling

  • PrimeDAO building tools that turn DeFi into a cooperative ecosystem.
  • Datachain focusing on interoperability solution for networks of blockchain.

Regenerative Finance

  • Plastiks is a blockchain-powered marketplace where Single-Use Plastic (SUP) producers and recyclers connect.
  • Untangled Protocol is a decentralized lending and liquidity protocol for real world asset collaterals.
  • ReFi Real World Assets Report producing an educational open source research document with the goal of moving the RWA markets forward from TradFi to DeFi to ReFi.
  • Refi Spring is growing the regenerative finance movement through in-person and online events.
  • Athena Protocol is a Decentralized Accreditation Organization for Environmental & Social Governance.

Community and Education

  • Deep Skills Identity protocol based on the freelancer coordination infrastructure.
  • Master Z Blockchain Software house boutique dedicated exclusively to exponential applications.
  • Learn Web3 Dao a fast growing and free education platform for new and experienced developers looking to break into Web3.
  • Ambassadors
    • Estonia
    • Brazil
    • Nigeria
    • Kenya
    • India
    • Korea
    • Uganda
    • Spain
    • Mexico
  • Odyssey DAO onboarding 1M people to web3
  • CryptoHunt building the front door to crypto, an independent listing of all crypto projects
  • Talent House The web3 professional network where anyone can discover high-potential talent and invest in their careers.
  • Brazil Podcast to explore and publicize initiatives in blockchain for a positive impact.
  • Blockchain eX Colombia Blockchain Innovation Center for education and intrapreneurship.
  • The Product House community to help web2 folks transition to web3 by giving them a platform to learn, earn and build.

Creator Economy

  • Tatum the fastest way to develop blockchain apps.
  • ARI Swap Celo Native NFT Marketplace focused on unique art, collectibles, and culture collections launched Ari Creator Fund.

Celo Jura

  • El Dorado the P2P marketplace of Latin America.

Humanitarian Aid

  • Acceptance, Usage, and Adoption of cUSD at the border: The Case of Ciudad Juárez and El Paso
  • Digitalstage.io Web3 for music and the creator economy. Grant support for the Ukraine-based team.

If you’d like to discuss a grant or receive feedback, please join during Ecosystem office hours on Fridays 7:00 am PST.

Applications continue to be reviewed on a monthly rolling basis. More information can be found here.

Kevin Tharayil

Grants @ Celo Foundation

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Hi Kevin and the rest of the Grants team!

Thank you for doing the hard and important work here, and for taking the time to share the information we don’t take it for granted :heart:

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Thanks for the information, very helpful!!!

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It has been a pleasure working on making our grants process smoother and more communicative alongside Kevin. We still have a lot of work cut out for us. Thank you to all the applicants for your patience and responsiveness. May is already looking like a great month in terms of volume of applications AND ideas.

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Thank you @Kevin. We are delighted to receive this grant. It has been great working the Celo Foundation, the grant team @nirvaan @cgwilson, the audit and the legal team. We are grateful for all the support received!

Just a correction on the name please, the grant is for Untangled Protocol - decentralised lending and liquidity protocol for real world asset collaterals. Untangled Finance Limited is the recipient entity of the grant. Both Binkabi (https://www.binkabi.io/; collateralised lending platform for SMEs in emerging markets) and Untangled Finance (https://untangled.finance/; digital securitisation platform bridging real world assets to Defi) are apps on the Untangled Protocol.

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Thanks for flagging - have updated!

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