A comprehensive overview of grants and incubator programs to support Web3 developers
This article is tailored towards Web3 developers who are looking for support for their development through grants, funding, and incubator programs. We update this article regularly, but developers always need to do their own research to verify whether a grant is still active or still accepting participants or potential candidates.
Aleph Zero Ecosystem Funding Program
$10,000 – $30,000, or variable / custom
The goal of the Aleph Zero Ecosystem Funding Program is to fund innovations from developer teams that expand the capabilities, functionalities, and adoption of the Aleph Zero blockchain. Project ideas can range from proof-of-concept and early-stage companies to experienced teams with solutions deployed on different platforms.
Algorand Ventures
Variable $
Projects building on Algorand can apply for funding from Algorand Ventures. Developers need at least a viable business case, technical expertise, a team with sufficient experience and a demo or minimal viable product (MVP).
Aptos Foundation Grant Program
Up to $25,000
Aptos invites builders to apply for grants to enhance community engagement, foster educational initiatives, and champion the cause of Aptos and decentralization. They offer 4 different grant programs, each with a different purpose, including ecosystem grants, innovative projects, security and gasless transactions.
Bahamut Grants
13,000 – 350,000 FTN
The Bahamut Foundation Grants Program provides milestone-based support and funding to organizations that aim to decentralize, grow, and support the Bahamut network, and advocate the world of web3.
BNB Chain Grants and MVB Program
Up to $200,000 per project
BNB Chain wants to empower developers in open-source initiatives to benefit the wider BNB community. Grantees can expect marketing exposure, tech support, ecosystem partnership building, and of course financial support.
Celo Community Fund: Prezenti
$5,000 – $25,000
The Celo Community Fund wants to support developers building on Celo, and Prezenti is the next generation version of their fund. They focus on community tools, on/off ramps, research and education, among various other initiatives. On average they have supported 59 projects with more than $18,000 each. A new round of grants will open up in October 2024.
Cronos Ecosystem Grants
Variable $
The Cronos Ecosystem Grants program aims to support early-stage projects on Cronos by bootstrapping initial product development, and by providing technical support. Grants will work with milestones, each unlocking a share of the grant.
Dfinity Developer Grants Program
Variable $
The Developer Grants Program aims to catalyze the growth of the Internet Computer ecosystem and make the Internet Computer accessible and approachable to more developers around the world by providing support to promising developers and teams.
Elysium Accelerator Program
Variable $
With the Elysium Accelerator Program, developers can elevate their web3 project to the next level through mentorship, advisory, network opportunities, marketing amplification, and more from blockchain experts.
EOS Foundation Funding Program
Variable $
The EOS Foundation wants to fund the EOS Network through multi-pronged, symbiotic, and community-driven initiatives. Through direct investments, sponsored working groups, and long term product development, they want to create positive sum games, which allow EOS to continue maturing a best-in-class blockchain ecosystem.
Immutable x Digital Worlds Foundation Fund
Variable $
The Immutable x Digital Worlds Foundation Fund is a $500 million fund to exponentially accelerate the growth and success of web3 projects & games built on Ethereum’s leading Layer 2 protocol, Immutable, via Ventures and providing access to Digital Worlds’ Grants. Successful Grant recipients will receive access to monetary support, milestone-based IMX rewards, and access to deep blockchain gaming support and expertise.
Kaia / Klaytn Grants Programs
Variable $
Kaia, formerly known as Klaytn, offers grants across 4 different funds. The Kaia Ecosystem Fund is dedicated to fostering Kaia ecosystem services and developer communities, while the Kaia Infrastructure Fund is about development services. In addition there’s the IOS Program, to help developers with the go-to-market strategy for their project, and finally there’s the D21 Program aimed at DeFi services.
Kroma Foundation Grant
Variable $
The Kroma Foundations wants to provide financial assistance to support projects that need additional resources to succeed. The grants aim to foster development within the Kroma ecosystem and support projects that align with their vision to expand and enhance Kroma ecosystem.
Mantle Grants
Up to $20,000 in MNT
Mantle is an ecosystem that aims to foster a strong developer community through its wide range of initiatives supporting projects across their development lifecycle. Mantle offers a Scouts Program that seeks to find the best of the best, while the Public Grants are about supporting early-stage projects with $20,000 in MNT tokens.
NEAR Ecosystem Grants
Various
The NEAR Foundation works through various initiatives, while the community also contributes, offering a wide range of funding and grants. Some initiatives focus on DeFi, others on NFTs. No matter in which stage the development of a project is, through the Ecosystem Grants on NEAR they can find support.
Oasis Grants Program
Variable
Oasis Protocol is looking for EVM-compatible dapps building on their Sapphire network. These projects should contribute to the wider Oasis network. In addition, developers who are building development tools can also apply for a grant.
Optimism Retro Funding
Up to 500,000 OP
The Optimism Retro Funding rewards building after launching their project and finding success. It’s meant to stimulate active participation in the Optimism ecosystem, which also includes the OP Superchain. In September 2024 Round 6 will take place, placing focus on Governance. Followed by Round 7 in October, which is all about developer tooling.
Polygon Community Grants Programs
Various
The Community Grants Program is a community grants program to support builders, teams and creators committed to the growth of the Polygon community. Polygon has established various ways for developers to get access to grants and funding, including the Quadratic Accelerator Program and the Farcaster Frames Innovator Track.
SKALE Ecosystem Fund
Various
SKALE Network has launched various funds to support and promote development on their network, including the Innovator Program for AppChains. In addition, the fund puts focus on Games, DeFi and AI. Their ecosystem fund has $100 million, which will be distributed to promising projects over multiple years.
Stellar Marketing Grants Program
Up to $100,000
As part of its commitment to bringing new individual users and businesses to the Stellar ecosystem. Marketing grants go to both new and existing projects with clear use cases and concrete timelines and are reserved for qualified teams with proven capability to define budgets, set benchmarks, execute on marketing campaigns, and deliver results.
Stellar Matching Fund
Up to $500,000
The Matching Fund is an investment track within the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) Enterprise Fund, for earlier stage companies (Pre-seed to Series B) interested in building on the Stellar network. They’ll match investments raised from lead investors of up to $500,000 USD. This allows them more co-investment opportunities in companies from around the world.
Tezos Foundation Grants
Various
Tezos Foundation hands out grants to projects in various tracks, including security and privacy. But also developer tools, education, training, and tools for running validator nodes.
TON Grants and Bounties
Up to $500,000
TON has various grants live for DeFi projects, games, developer education, and of course social Web3 use cases. The team provides grants to develop a project, but also intents to provide funding for user acquisition or liquidity.
Vara Network: The Gear Foundation
$10,000 up to $30,000 in most cases
The Gear Foundation Grants Program supports project development, growth and innovation across the Vara ecosystem by providing financial aid and project support. Grantees will receive financial support, developer tools, tech support and advisory services.
XRPL Grants
$10,000 up to $200,000
XRPL Grants is now accepting applications on a rolling basis. XRPL Grants funds software developers interested in building technical standards and solutions to help grow the XRP Ledger Community, leveraging the XRPL’s open source technology.
ZetaChain Developer Grants
Milestone based
The ZetaChain Grants Program aims to support innovative, decentralized businesses that help grow the ZetaChain ecosystem. The milestone-based funding grant will support dapps with scalable, novel approaches for onboarding non-crypto natives into web3 and aims to create value for the broader ZetaChain ecosystem. They put focus on for example identity and social dapps, DOAs, games, DeFi, and general crypto user experience.
