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In this blog post, we will cover some of the primary grant and funding opportunities made available to developers, startups, and organizations from all over the world by Algorand.
While the following will provide all the essential information and links you need, if you are unfamiliar with Algorand you can learn more through our short video, 1 Year of The Algorand Blockchain MainNet below, and join Algorand’s upcoming “How to Build Blockchain Apps on Algorand” webinar at info.algorand.com/build
Why Algorand?
2020 has been very busy for the Algorand Foundation and the Algorand community. The main focus for the Algorand Foundation this year has been growing the Algorand ecosystem, partners, and community.
We’ve seen some exciting projects emerge and look to continue and build on the momentum into 2021 and onward.
At the Algorand Foundation, we understand the importance of providing entrepreneurs with the resources, support, and incentives to take their project from “zero to one”.
Together with our community, Algorand is building a trusted, public, and permissionless infrastructure for the borderless economy.
Algorand’s game-changing public blockchain has 5 key elements. These are:
- Pure Proof-of-Stake consensus
- Global scale
- Broad decentralization
- Robust security
- Guaranteed finality
Our Smart Contracts, ASAs (Algorand Standard Assets), Atomic Transfers functionality, and transaction throughput capabilities make building powerful, robust, and decentralized applications on Algorand easier and more secure.
We have launched three funding programs this year to provide support and resources developers and entrepreneurs need to build decentralized applications on the Algorand blockchain.
$250M Algorand Foundation grants program
In April, we launched our 250 million ALGO Grants Program. This broad multi-year Grants Program offers various funding level opportunities to projects building apps to support infrastructure, end-user application, and research innovation on the Algorand blockchain. This empowers innovation and development, supporting the growth of a vibrant, diverse, and thriving Algorand ecosystem.
The Grant Program provides funding opportunities for developers, entrepreneurs, and organizations across various industries, use cases, and focus areas. The broad nature of the grant program offers funding opportunities across four categories;
- Research proposals
Funding is available for innovative research directions with potentially major contributions to the long term success of Algorand and any other blockchain ecosystems.
- Development tools and infrastructure
Tools and infrastructure components to support development over the Algorand blockchain and its use. These tools and components should make the Algorand network easily accessible to developers and system builders.
- Applications and use cases
Grants for projects building and deploying applications targeting a variety of real-world use-cases and demonstrating high potentials for driving mainstream adoption and enabling borderless economy.
- Education and community
Supporting educational efforts that drive awareness of open-source, decentralized technologies, and their impact on business and society. We also support community-led initiatives that strengthen and grow the Algorand community.
30+ grants already awarded
Since the program launch, we have already awarded 30+ grants across all four grant categories, with many more in the pipeline. A full list of grant recipients to date is available on our Grant Recipients webpage.
As the program is a multi-year program, it is currently open for new applications.
In support of participants in the grant program, the Algorand developer portal was enhanced with new tutorials, solutions, and resources to make building on Algorand simple and accessible. We are thrilled to support innovation and development that helps to grow the Algorand ecosystem, enabling a broad and active blockchain development community.
June welcomed the launch of the Algorand Asia Accelerator.
Agorand Asia accelerator
Together with Borderless Capital (the Algorand-focused blockchain venture fund) and Powered by LongHash Ventures, the Algorand Asia Accelerator aims to encourage and spur blockchain development with an accent on Finance 3.0 and beyond, empowering projects to build, grow and foster financial innovations across the Algorand ecosystem.
The program provides selected projects with end-to-end support across the wide spectrum of strategy formulation, go-to-market execution, and subject matter guidance across technological mentorship, token economics, marketing, and fundraising. The blockchain startups and projects selected are benefiting from working with a variety of esteemed, distinguished, and experienced program mentors.
The first batch of applications has been reviewed, with ten startups selected to participate in the Accelerator’s first 12-week cohort which commenced on 19th Oct 2020 and will run through to January 2021.
You can check out 10 Blockchain Startups selected and more information on each respective project here.
The caliber and potential of the more than 150 applications received shows Finance 3.0 holds tremendous possibilities for startups and we are proud the program offers the necessary funding and support to assist startups building decentralized applications on Algorand.
We interviewed some startup founders and CEOs as part of a video series for the Asia Accelerator program, who discuss how it all started, share why they chose Algorand, and give advice to new founders and startups which are worth watching.
- Algorand Asia Accelerator: Introducing Carlos Domingo, CEO & Co-Founder of Securitize
- Algorand Asia Accelerator: Introducing Props CEO & Co-Founder Adi Sideman
- Algorand Asia Accelerator: Introducing Alex Wearn, IDEX Co-Founder & CEO
- Algorand Asia Accelerator: Introducing Blockdaemon Founder & CEO Konstantin Richter
The caliber and success of the Asia Accelerator program paved the way for the European Accelerator.
Agorand Europe accelerator
Algorand Europe Accelerator launched in mid-October with applications open until December 18th, 2020. The program is a collective initiative led by Eterna Capital, Borderless Capital, and the Algorand Foundation.
Algorand Europe Accelerator is the first European start-up accelerator for developers and entrepreneurs building on Algorand. The aim of the program is the same as the Asia Accelerator but with more of an emphasis on Europe.
The program will assist participants through funding, support, guidance and encourage passionate founders to build promising decentralized applications on the Algorand platform. The program features a great lineup of mentors with $15,000 in seed funding for successful startups selected. End-to-end support in the areas the successful startups require is also available.
Projects that demonstrate aptitude and potential throughout the program are candidates for follow-up investments of up to $500,000.
Massimo Morini, Chief Economist at the Algorand Foundation recently shared, “We’ve seen very strong growth momentum of the Algorand ecosystem with a focus on open finance’’.
Some examples include USDT, USDC integrations, our collaboration with the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, and Marshall Island’s digital currency. Props, with 5 million-plus users have migrated to Algorand and we have witnessed mainnet transaction volume surpassing 2 million in a rolling 24 hour period, powerful proof of the throughput and speed of the Algorand network, and its readiness for mainstream adoptions.”
Algorand Europe Accelerator is a fantastic opportunity to build on the great work so far and further develop our ecosystem. In this current environment, accelerator programs offer an important opportunity for startups to get the support and funding needed to make their projects a reality. We are committed to growing the ecosystem and are positioned to support projects as they venture into finance 3.0, through the strength of our technology, our community, and our network.
In addition to these funding opportunities, The Algorand Foundation also introduced Development Ambassador (DevAm) rewards. Developer Ambassadors play a key role in participating in and growing, a vibrant worldwide development community. Developer Ambassadors receive rewards for the creation of tutorials, solutions, and videos. The Algorand team works closely with Developer Ambassadors throughout the content creation process to ensure the content aligns with guidelines and is of high quality.
We are excited to share we have an upcoming webinar on the horizon on November 17th titled, ‘How to Build Applications on Algorand‘ [if you are reading this after Nov 17th, you can still watch the replay]. This is a great opportunity to learn how to get started building sophisticated blockchain applications on Algorand.
The webinar will cover how easy it can be to start building decentralized solutions with Algorand including crowdfunding, asset tokenization, supply chain management, and gaming applications. The session will also showcase blockchain features and capabilities such as Smart contracts, Standard Assets, Transactions, Atomic Transfers, and showcase our developer portal.
This webinar is suitable for both Enterprise developers as well as independent blockchain developers so don’t miss out and save your seat today!
Register to How to Build Blockchain Applications on Algorand.
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