Introducing Kadena Eco’s Inaugural Grant Cohort
By Dan Wiggins, Head of Gaming, Kadena Eco
In April, Kadena Eco announced its grants program, spurring countless conversations with founders with big ideas for building on Kadena. Our team was blown away and at times overwhelmed by the volume and quality of applications over the past few months. We’re now ready to share our first cohort of grant recipients — and more on why we selected the grantees that we did.
But first, a quick reminder of the objectives we had in mind when we kicked off the grant program;
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Support early-stage, Kadena-based projects by providing product and technical feedback as well as providing monetary and marketing support
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Align incentives with new builders, foster collaboration and knowledge sharing between teams, and help projects grow within the broader ecosystem
Given the interest in grants programs for new projects and those possibly migrating from other blockchain partners, we’ve discovered that there’s no shortage of interest in Kadena. At Kadena and Kadena Eco, we’re focused on building and supporting blockchain innovations that offer long-term applicability and durability. We sought founders who are similarly committed to iterating their dApps, tools, and infrastructure projects over long-term time horizons.
Ultimately, we signed agreements with nine projects. These projects caught our attention because they’re united in their long-term approach to building, integrity, and technical expertise. We also considered many factors before deciding on each grant, such as a team’s overall commitment — was it just an idea, or were they already writing PACT and participating in Discord? We also looked at how much sweat equity and other resources each team has invested into its project.
We wanted to know: who’s in this for real?
As grant proposals streamed in from the community, our team at Kadena Eco jumped headfirst into analyzing their plans, deliberating projects, and getting to know founders. We’re thrilled to share with you our inaugural class of grant recipients consisting of projects focused on infrastructure, NFTs, and developer tools and education.
It’s time. Without further ado, please meet our newest collaborators!
Infrastructure
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**Lago Finance **— ****provider of foundational DeFi infrastructure, including a bridge to Ethereum to facilitate liquidity inflow to Kadena as well as a Kadena-native stablecoin.
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Kalend Finance — Decentralized lending/borrowing protocol with algorithmically-set interest rates based on supply and demand. Users exchange the time value of assets on Kadena frictionlessly with instant liquidation and insurance pools.
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Electron Labs — Zero-knowledge (ZK) technology company focused on bringing horizontal scaling and on-chain privacy, two key blockchain infrastructure components.
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**Unmarshal **— Multi-chain data infrastructure offering simplified access to DeFi, NFT, and Metaverse data, with built-in composability and sustainability. Unmarshal’s data indexing protocol facilitates seamless access to on-chain data for DeFi applications.
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**Crankk **— ****Builder of distributed wireless networks that provides coverage for IoT devices such as smart meters and GPS trackers.
Developer Tools & Education
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**Hypercent **— a fair launch IDO platform, NFT Launchpad and NFT Marketplace
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KDlaunch & KDSwap — a decentralized IDO (initial DEX offering) platform, launchpad, DEX, and NFT Marketplace.
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Eucalyptus Labs — a ****Kadena software developer focused on shipping products and adding support in two key areas, developer UX and infrastructure
Utility NFTs
- The Database of Native Assets (DNA) — a token-based bridge between the physical and digital worlds. Creators mint branded DNA tokens that prove a product’s provenance and authenticity, reducing counterfeiting risk.
The Kadena Eco team could not be more delighted to work with such diverse talent. Congratulations to all and thank you to all the applicants!
Searching for Kadena Eco’s Second Grant Program Cohort
We’re already searching for Kadena Eco’s second grant cohort.
Will it include you?
For now, Kadena Eco will remain patient and continue to select key infrastructure projects for our second cohort. Web3 is more robust than ever, as it currently boasts more talent, innovation, tools, adoption, and capital than we’ve ever seen in the history of this space. At Kadena Eco, we’re on the lookout for experienced founders and technical leaders working on long-term projects with a roadmap and business plan. Take a look at our grant program today to learn more and see if a Kadena Eco Grant is right for you.
Find us: https://kadena.io/eco/
Apply online using our Typeform
Reach out: grants@kadena.io
