The Celo Foundation Grants Program is focused on supporting projects committed to Celo’s mission of building a financial system that creates conditions of prosperity for all. The program has date funded over 180 projects from more than 45 countries spanning critical infrastructure, tools, dapps, and social impact projects in the ecosystem.
Since the beginning of this year, the Grants program has been accepting applications on a monthly rolling basis.
We are happy to share with you the February 2022 cohort to be awarded a grant. Congratulations to all the teams!
Cash In Cash Out/ Wallets
Swap Bitssa: creating a swap engine that enables users to trade their stablecoin for fiat in up to 40 different countries worldwide.
eSolidar: charitable giving marketplace with ESG management.
Trust: buy, store, collect NFTs, exchange & earn crypto.
Edge: self Custody Crypto Exchange and Security Platform.
Bundle Africa: social payments app for cash or cryptocurrency.
Wakala: decentralized last-mile peer-to-peer crypto on- and off-ramp for the Celo ecosystem.
DeFi
Remox: multisig wallet for mass payments and treasury management built on Celo blockchain.
Canza Finance: African Open Finance Portal enabling access to financial services through Local Money Market Agent.
Infra & Dev Tooling
Dapplooker: running Graph node for Celo network to implement community subgraphs and network dashboards.
Unmarshal: blockchain data infrastructure that helps dapp developers to query structured, reliable and real time data from multiple blockchains.
Regenerative Finance
Green World AIRS Initiative: provides eco-education, farmers training, appropriate technology, sustainable enterprise, health services and empowerment for women and girls; to conserve sacred forests and biocultural knowledge.
Nozama Tech Limited: blockchain-powered marketplace where Single-Use Plastic (SUP) producers and recyclers connect.
Community and Education
Startup Pathway: scaling Startup Pathway to include 4 cohorts a year plus free online learning tracks.
Groove with Gaia: content creation to promote ecosystem inclusion for eco-conscious communities.
Dacade: content creation, courses, workshops, and feature implementations for Dacade platform.
Deep Skills: decentralized onboarding system for skill-based work.
Eggheads: building educational and community building games.
MasterZ: where blockchain protocols come into contact with multi diverse Generation Z talents that will create startups and teams.
The DAOist: network of DAO contributors pushing the frontier of the DAO lifestyle.
Ambassador Programs:
– Spain
– Nigeria
– Mexico
– Turkey
– Brazil
Creator Economy
African Digital Art: building Nandi as the premiere community owned and curated marketplace for African Art & Culture that connects creators directly to their fans.
Please see list of grant recipients from the January 2022 cohort here.
Community Feedback and Improvement
Since the start of the grants program in Q’2, 2020, the Celo Foundation has been inviting applications on a quarterly basis. During the previous two grant waves, we witnessed a sizable increase in the number of applications totaling more than 300 from over 50 countries. The feedback received from current and previous applicants has focused on the need to have a quick turnaround on decision-making and increased transparency in the grant-making process. Scaling the program to meet the growing number and diversity of applications has proved challenging.
Based on the feedback, the grants program is now reviewing applications and issuing grants on a monthly rolling-basis. We are now able to close the grant process with applicants within 3 weeks! In addition, to overcome the operational overhead to administer grants, we now have expanded the grants committee to include members from the community (i.e. Climate Collective). Our goal is to involve more members of the community in the grant review process. If you’d like to volunteer, please feel free to fill out this form and the grants team will reach out to you.
The community is the heart of the Celo Ecosystem. Our goal is to continue to improve the process and involve the community more. We’d love to get your feedback. If you’d like to share your thoughts or suggestions on the grant process and RFPs , please feel free to submit your feedback here. Or join office hours weekly Friday at 7:00 am PST.
If you’d like to apply or recommend a project, you can learn more about the application process here.
Thanks, and congratulations again to all the grant recipients!
Kevin Tharayil
Grants @ Celo Foundation