After unveiling the 50 million $STRK Gaming Committee in March this year, the Starknet Foundation has now announced a $5 million Seed Grant Program where all types of projects can apply, so long as they’re building on the Ethereum-based Layer 2 rollup.

Program Details

The program is offering teams grants of up to $25k in USDC in non-dilutive funding in order to incentivize development on the Starknet ecosystem and further help the network’s growth. Anyone interested can apply using a simplified application process where projects have to provide a clear roadmap of how the grant is to be used for the next 3 months. Applicants can expect to receive an answer about two weeks after submitting, regardless of the type of project in question, as the program is accepting all kinds of products across most industries.

Minimum Requirements

Projects that are already live on the chain and have a core community cannot apply to the program. Applications that are related to gambling, drugs, firearms, illicit trade, money laundering and/or any criminal activity are not qualified to receive a grant. If your project doesn’t belong to any of these categories, you have a chance of getting funded.

The program is particularly designed for teams that have developed a demo, minimum viable product (MVP) or proof of concept “but haven’t yet gone to market.” Next to that requirement, the listed criteria also mention having active involvement in the Starknet community, which can include participation in an entry-level initiative such as a builder program or hackathon. Last but not least, a grant from this program is also appropriate for projects that plan to use or build upon the network’s existing tools and integrations.

While these are the minimum requirements, the final tweet in the official Twitter thread also mentions that projects have a higher chance of getting a grant if the program sees the following traits: innovation, profound potential impact, significant milestones, embeddedness with the ecosystem, and a strong community engagement & track record.

If you meet the mentioned criteria, the announcement encourages teams to submit a clear 3-month plan in the submission process detailing how the grant will be used, after which the submission will be evaluated by an internal committee. A decision will be made known within 2 weeks, with successful applicants set to be onboarded by completing KYC and signing a grant agreement before the funds are received. After 3 months, a post grant check-in by the Foundation will take place, and in order to help with assessing results, projects should make sure that they provide and share regular updates to the team in the form of blog posts, AMAs, videos and so on.