Quadratic Funding for the AEZ

Generally speaking, most projects can nominate themselves to receive funding from the AEZ Quadratic Funding program run by the Atom Accelerator DAO and DoraFactory.

There are, however some key guidelines and nice-to-haves:

1. Applicants must have active Github repos and a video demo of your project (as applicable)
2. Applicants must specify what the Quadratic Funding will be used for
3. Applicants must have received less than $1.5 million in total from venture capitals and previous grants.
4. Projects must not be commercialized or have tokens listed.
5. Projects must specifically contribute to the Cosmos Hub and/or the Atom Economic Zone (AEZ) ecosystem.
6. There are no restrictions on project categories. Applications can be from either technical or non-technical projects.
7. Nice-to-haves:
   1. Detailed information of projects’ team members
   2. An actual usable demo with front-end (if applicable)
   3. Smart contract address if the project is already deployed on a blockchain

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.

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.

A team could technically apply for funding through more than one of our funding programs. However, the scope of the funding and arrangements will have to be different.

Several teams have applied and been approved for funding by our Regular Grants program and the Quadratic Funding program. In the example below, we will use DAO DAO.

• DAO DAO received $67,100 in funding via our Regular Grants program in August 2023 to deploy their tooling on Neutron. The grant included the development of some specific functionality and integrations that we requested for their tooling.
• DAO DAO then received $80,000 in funding again via our Regular Grants program in July 2024. This grant was to deploy their tooling on the Cosmos Hub, now that the Hub can host CosmWasm contracts (a requirement of DAO DAO).
• Unrelated to both of these grants, the DAO DAO team applied to our Quadratic Funding program and received $1,060 in matching contributions in Round 2 of the program in June 2024. The scope of that grant was a generic “maintenance and development” of the tooling as an Interchain-wide public good since the tooling is deployed across the ecosystem. The amount of matching contributions from us was determined by the public support they received during that round.

So, the two approved funding requests from our Regular Grants program were for pre-determined amounts for a fixed scope, where our Grants Team worked closely with DAODAO to define and evaluate deliverables.

In comparison, the Quadratic Funding for DAO was for a smaller, undetermined amount. It has a loose scope (since funding amounts are not set) and is generally open-ended in terms of deliverables. It is based solely on community support that projects get during the Quadratic Funding Round.

AADAO does, however, monitor new projects that list themselves for Quadratic Funding. Where it is a team that we have funded through our Regular Grants program, we ask them to clarify the scope of their QF application, and should the scope be exactly the same as the Regular Grant funding they received, working with DoraFactory, we exercise discretion in removing them from the QF Round.

The ATOM Accelerator is focused on the Cosmos Hub and the ATOM token. Since our funding is not unlimited and because Interchain public goods are often expensive, our stance is to fund some in association with other app-chain grant programs. We have a liaison with these grant programs and will coordinate with them when necessary to fund together Interchain public goods.