Apply for Cosmos Hub Grant Funding

We will employ three methods

1. Passive open grants: applicants find an idea they have an interest in and submit their applications. Please note that the categories listed above are the ones the ATOM Accelerator will be focusing on but they are not exhaustive
2. Outreach based grants where the ATOM Accelerator proactively seeks out to fund specific initiatives and encourages specific individual or teams to apply for a grant
3. RFPs. In a few instances, the ATOM Accelerator will manifest its interest in projects its Reviewer Committee deems strategic for ATOM and will be publishing more detailed guidelines on its functional and technical needs. Multiple teams are encouraged to participate and submit their application.

Pre-Proposal Checks
You stand a better chance if you are applying for something we have listed. If not, that’s fine – just remember that you will have to prove your arguments

Browse our current funding themes to find which suites your innovation best:

• Interchain Security – Partial Set Security (PSS)
• ATOM zone build-out
• ATOM as Interchain Money
• ATOM Interchain Data
• Cross-Ecosystem Collaboration
• Infra & Tooling
• R&D
• Marketing, Growth & Developer Engagement

You can learn more about each of these grant categories here.

Submit Your Proposal
Start by filling out our grant application form with detailed information about your project, objectives, and how it aligns with the Cosmos ecosystem.

Applications will be initially screened by two members of our Grant Committee team, chosen by their expertise in the grant category that you applied for.

Should your grant application pass this initial screening, you may be invited to an interview or we may request further information by email.

After the interview, there will be a vote within our Grant Committee – with the grant being approved once there is a majority consensus. Any member with a potential conflict of interest will be recused from the vote.

You can view our Grant Committee members here.

We assess applications using a rating sheet to pre-screen them.  Two members of our Grant Committee team complete the pre-screening task, chosen by their expertise in the grant category you applied for.

A total of 16 points is possible, and an average grade of 13.5 or higher from the two reviewers is the threshold needed for an application to move on to the interview stage.

The rating criteria can be read here.

Technically, yes—you can apply for funding through more than one of our funding programs. However, the scope of the funding and arrangements will have to be different.

For example, you are developing a new Cosmos SDK module that will add a specific functionality to the Cosmos Hub. Assuming you meet the requirements of the different funding programs and the approval thresholds, you could:

• Get funding via our Regular Grants program to build out the module and integrate it to the Cosmos Hub
• Get funding via Quadratic Grants, once you have completed the above, and have now released the module for any other Cosmos SDK chain to use.
• Get funding via our Ventures Program, once you decide to apply some monetization strategy and wish to further develop the module and productize it

This is just an illustrative example of how a project could be eligible for multiple funding programs. It does not mean that you will definitely be eligible, nor guarantee that your applications will be approved.

All the Contributors at AADAO hold themselves to a high level of conduct, especially when acting as stewards of the Cosmos Hub. In the spirit of transparency, you can view the internal policy that we use to ensure compliance here.

Absolutely, although we expect to give funding priority to the categories we listed on our website. We are aware some grant ideas might not be covered in the listed categories and as such are committed to process them as well.