Amendment to original proposal
Following discussions with the Celo Foundation on priority areas for Season 1 and to ensure the overall ecosystem remains within the $3M budget, we have revised our scope and reduced our budget by 42% (from $811,200 cUSD). Key changes include:
- Removal of Pilot Grants: This category has been removed, as support for Stage 2 teams will now be provided through Proof of Ship.
- Running one round - not two. This is due to the experimental nature of the Season’s intents and size of the ecosystem.
- Discontinuation of Regional DAO Review Support: This decision is partly budget-driven, but also reflects that grant criteria are now more clear-cut. In previous rounds, the Regional DAO’s role was valuable due to the in-depth local knowledge and subjectivity they brought, which is less necessary under the new framework.
- Review Support via Celo Foundation: The Foundation will nominate team members (on a pro bono basis) to support reviews as needed.
- Reduced Management Overheads: In line with the scope changes, we’ve scaled down management time accordingly (inc. the removal of July expenses due to the late start of Season 1).
Additionally, we’re introducing a new funding stream: the Boost Pool. This will allocate $150k cUSD to fast-track promising teams, particularly those already collaborating with the Foundation, to get started on Celo. This pool will be invite-only by the Celo Foundation and operate over the entire duration of Season 1, until all funding is allocated. However, teams will still be subject to submitting an application to be approved, complete KYC, and will only receive funding based on agreed milestone delivery. The Boost Pool will award smaller grants between $5k- $10k cUSD.
Revised Budget
| Season 1 | No. of grants | Cost per Grant | Open round | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Admin | 60,000 | $ 1 | $ 60,000 | $ 60,000 |
| Contingency | 10,000 | $ 1 | $ 10,000 | $ 10,000 |
| Growth (stage 2) | 6 | $ 25,000 | $ 150,000 | $ 150,000 |
| Scale (stage 3) | 2 | $ 50,000 | $ 100,000 | $ 100,000 |
| Boost (stage 2, 3, 4) | 15 | $ 10,000 | $ 150,000 | $ 150,000 |
| $ 470,000 |
Revised Administration
| 2025 budget | total steward | admin | total month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jul | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Aug | 6,900 | 2,000 | 8,900 |
| Sep | 7,800 | 2,000 | 9,800 |
| Oct | 12,000 | 2,000 | 14,000 |
| Nov | 7,800 | 2,000 | 9,800 |
| Dec | 5,500 | 2,000 | 7,500 |
| Close out / contingency | 0 | 10,000 | 10,000 |
| TOTALS | 40,000 | 20,000 | 60,000 |
In summary, we have reduced our Season 1 budget by 42% to align with the Celo Foundation’s priorities and to help ensure the community stays within the $3M spending cap. Our core metrics, team, operations, and motivation remain unchanged. Prezenti is proud to support this next chapter of the Celo ecosystem and excited to play a key role in its evolution.
Prezenti Season 1 Funding Request: Direct Grants
Summary
This subsequent proposal is a request for a further continuation of funding for Prezenti, enabling us to provide the only regular direct grant funding within the ecosystem in Season 1. This is a necessary and critical pillar to ensuring Celo’s continued growth, attracting and retaining top tier talent.
This proposal seeks approval to support the Celo Season 1 intents: grow daily transactions on Celo and Grow TVL on Celo. This approval is for $470,000 cUSD to support builders, founders and projects that align with Season 1.
Prezenti has become a trusted part of the Celo ecosystem. Over the last 3 years, we have offered a stable, reliable way to direct community funds to individuals and projects driving thoughtful innovation. Small and medium-sized grants are essential to any thriving blockchain network, and Prezenti has previously ensured this vital support is always available on Celo and would like to continue this mission.
In our 2024 retrospective, we highlighted the three phases of Prezenti, with 2025 identified as the year of "fusion."Below, we outline what Prezenti aims to achieve and support for the Celo Community in Season 1.
Motivation
The Prezenti team will continue offering direct grants to the Celo Community for Season 1. This proposal is for the second half of 2025, August - December aligning with the Season 1 intent. We plan to:
- Continue to offer grants, fully aligned with Season 1.
- 100% alignment to supporting builders and programs on their journey and facilitating a strong builder funnel.
- Continue to increase collaboration with key stakeholders, including (but not exhaustive) the Celo Foundation (esp Dev Rel), Regional Hubs, Celo Camp, Celo PG, venture capitalists.
- Continue to input into the Celo ‘Seasons’ strategy and support the changes for Governance 2.0, Season 2 and the L2.
- Refine and adapt our grant funding application process and funding mechanisms as needed.
Specification
Prezenti would run one open grant round and one closed ‘Boost’ funding round, for which specific teams are invited to apply by the Celo Foundation, both 100% focussed on Season 1 intents.
1. Refined Grant Pools
For Season 1 we have now removed our ‘Micro Pool’ grant [$2k cUSD] and our ‘Pilot Pool’ grant [$10k cUSD]. After running 4 rounds with the ‘pool’s’ structure we have decided the Micro and Pilot pools do not map towards Celo achieving a strong builder funnel and programmes most effectively by way of grants. The Season 1 intentions are a move towards maturing the ecosystem and these pools are targeted towards earlier stage proof of concept style work, which is not the focus for Season 1 direct grants. This part of the funnel (stage 0 + 1) is aptly captured with the amazing work the Dev Rel and CeloPG team is doing with Proof of Ship and similar programs.
For Season 1 we now propose delivering the following grants:
- Growth Pool ($25,000): Scaling and development: Intent 1: Stage 2
- Scale Pool ($50,000): larger scale initiatives: Intent 1: Stage 3
- NEW: A Boost pool ($10,000) operating over the entire duration of Season 1 is offered to teams selected to apply by the Celo Foundation only, and may be offered grants up to $10,000. These teams must still fill in an application form, pass the review and KYC to be entitled to a milestone based grant.
2. Global Collaboration
- Continue to strengthen partnerships within the community, including the Celo Foundation, Regional Hubs, Celo Camp, Celo PG, and others, by including additional stakeholders in our review and due diligence process where appropriate.
- Drive more targeted communication around the grants on offer, for example hosting a X space with the Regional DAOs.
- As we begin to start a possible alignment to Optimism Grants processes we will trial expanding our review team to include at least 1 personnel from the Celo Foundation.
- Collaborate with VC funds (to begin with Verda Ventures/Celo Camp to connect promising grantees with downstream investment opportunities.
- Work closely with Celo Camp via regular knowledge sharing and planning sessions and other ways to collaborate.
3. Expanded Reviewer Team
In previous rounds, the Regional DAO’s role was valuable due to the in-depth local knowledge and subjectivity they brought, which is less necessary under the new framework. More appropriately we will have the inclusion of 1–2 reviewers from the foundation, on a pro bono basis—to provide on-the-ground insight and perspective in funding decisions.
4. Strategy input for 2026 and beyond
Prezenti will continue to be a primary stakeholder and driver of shaping ecosystem-wide grant offerings as Celo moves through the Seasons.
Metrics & KPIs
During Season 1, Prezenti will focus on the following metrics. Prezenti will also align with global Season 1 KPIs where relevant and required.
- Forum updates: can be found here
- Multisig Transaction Logs: can be found here
- Governance Engagement - can be found here
- One standard grant round fully delivered
- At least 23 number grants signed
- No. of grants issued vs planned
- Grantee feedback given to rejected applicants
- Post grant surveys issued and data analyzed.
- Aggregated daily tx’s of grantees (average over a 7 day period)*
- Aggregated monthly tx’s of grantees after all grants are completed*
- Total blockchain transactions driven by grantees since grants awarded*
- Percentage of additional funding secured by grantees, where possible to source.
- Deliver 1-2 case studies highlighting transformational outcomes and key learning
- Host 1-2 showcases highlighting previous grantees
- Metrics will be reported separately for each round to enable clear comparison and attribution.
*Metrics to be delivered using KarmaGAP
Current status
The team is currently delivering on supporting 24 ongoing grants, due to complete by 30 September 2025 at the soonest, but has no funding to open any more rounds.
If no further funding was to be secured then once these existing grants had completed, Prezenti would close its company, return any outstanding funds from our operations.
Timeline and Milestones
| Season 1 / 2025 | Peach round | Boost round |
|---|---|---|
| August | Launch Peach round | Boost Pool funding open |
| September | Close Peach round / start reviews | Review, KYC & support Boost Pool grants |
| October | Finish Peach review and begin KYC | Review, KYC & support Boost Pool grants |
| November | BAU- support ongoing grants (Budget from previous round.) | Review, KYC & support Boost Pool grants |
| December | Grants activity - month 1 / Season 2 rounds open | Review, KYC & support Boost Pool grants / Season 2 rounds open |
| January | Grants activity - month 2 | Grants activity - month 1 |
| February | Grants activity - month 3 | Grants activity - month 2 |
| March | Grants activity - month 4 | Grants activity - month 3 |
| April | Grants activity - month 5 | Grants activity - month 4 |
Detailed Budget
We request a replenishment of the grant ‘pools’ and support funds with a top up from the Celo Community Treasury, offering two grant pools to builders during Season 1.
| Season 1 | No. of grants | Cost per Grant | Open round | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Admin | 60,000 | $ 1 | $ 60,000 | $ 60,000 |
| Contingency | 10,000 | $ 1 | $ 10,000 | $ 10,000 |
| Growth (stage 2) | 6 | $ 25,000 | $ 150,000 | $ 150,000 |
| Scale (stage 3) | 2 | $ 50,000 | $ 100,000 | $ 100,000 |
| Boost (stage 2, 3, 4) | 15 | $ 10,000 | $ 150,000 | $ 150,000 |
| $ 470,000 |
Administration
Administrative costs include essential tools, software subscriptions, finance and legal support, and other operational expenses required to run the grants program smoothly. Steward remuneration reflects compensation for the core team.
| 2025 budget | total steward | admin | total month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jul | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Aug | 6,900 | 2,000 | 8,900 |
| Sep | 7,800 | 2,000 | 9,800 |
| Oct | 12,000 | 2,000 | 14,000 |
| Nov | 7,800 | 2,000 | 9,800 |
| Dec | 5,500 | 2,000 | 7,500 |
| Close out / contingency | 0 | 10,000 | 10,000 |
| TOTALS | 40,000 | 20,000 | 60,000 |
Due to the nature of grant giving and the ongoing management required, we need a budget to be able to support ongoing grants past the December/January Season change as many grants do not deliver within the 4 month allocated timescale. Our current operations/administration pool currently has $89,388 cUSD (25/07/25). This is rolled over from previous funding rounds and acts as a necessary contingency buffer. If Prezenti was to close, any remaining funds would be returned to the community via the governance contract.
Grant Operations
- Season 1 includes ongoing use of the Charmverse platform for transparency.
- We use Forti as the interactive platform to showcase our grantees to dogfood a previous Prezenti grantee and help them grow.
- We utilize KarmaGAP. Supporting the streamline with Celo Public Goods and the Celo Dev Rel teams.
- We’ve applied for AWS credits to allow grantees to get added support in their early stages of growth where infrastructure costs can be a burden for some teams.
Payment Terms
Upon approval, the total budget will be deposited to the Prezenti (2/3) Multisig in a single transaction from the Community Fund. From there, Prezenti will allocate to individual Pool SAFEs money for each round.
- Prezenti ‘Master’ Multisig Wallet for receiving funds: celo:0xA5c9389A0Ce1bFe24FF883E761Ff313225C77D44
Grant ‘Pools’ Multisig Wallets:
- Growth Pool: celo:0x3C9a27cd6d3CaF595aa5088001482664215f8Da7
- Scale Pool: celo: 0xd1e5488B44AF038f2B220D1e53f0Cb068904E3b3
- Boost pool Safe: celo: tbc
- Admin Safe: celo:0x03344b9FCDdE6BE2FEF42876dB8fDc0696Ec688F
- ETH Safe: eth:0x03344b9FCDdE6BE2FEF42876dB8fDc0696Ec688F
Team
Continuing to give real stability and consistency, the team remains unchanged, although roles and responsibilities become increasingly streamlined.
Multi-sig ⅔ signers for Prezenti.
- Aaron Boyd - Prezenti Founder, independent validator operator, previous Celo PG Steward
Celo Gnosis Safe Signer: celo:0xd07B6140a682D367A38eA4B2f3b3460acEecDdb1 - Wade Abel - Prezenti Founder, independent validator operator, Celo Governance Guild
Celo Gnosis Safe Signer: celo:0x3fA757A1bA226B52dF46769631c66356151fa4ac - Maya Brown - Prezenti Founder, previous Celo PG steward, web3 grant proposal writer
Celo Gnosis Safe Signer: 0xAC15963065Cd50b25B9eA0eA579f286942A2Af14 - Additional reviewers from the Celo Foundation (unpaid - to be agreed with the Foundation)
For more detail see our website: About us
Additional Support/Resources
For more details, visit: prezenti.xyz
See our past alumni here: Funded Projects
Grant program history and information: charmverse.prezenti.xyz
Our first funding request (2022): Reopening of the Celo Community Fund
Our second funding request (2023): Prezenti follow-on funding request
Our third funding request (with Celo PG (2024): Prezenti funding 2024 H1
Our forth funding request (with Celo PG (2024): Prezenti funding 2024 H2
Our fifth funding request {Season 0, 2025): Prezenti funding: Season 0
Our Season 0 report: Prezenti Season 0 report