{"id":"y3q54weQius","title":"THE VAULT - Day 2 - Josh Daniels: NEAR Funding Platform Built For Founders","description":"Follow the latest from NEAR Protocol on:\nWebsite: https://near.org/\nDiscord: https://near.chat/\nBlog: https://near.org/blog/\nTwitter:   / nearprotocol  \nGitHub: https://github.com/near  https://github.com/nearprotocol\n#Blockchain #FutureIsNEAR #NEAR #nearprotocol","channel_name":"NEAR Protocol","published_at":"2021-11-16T00:00:00.000Z","thumbnail_url":"https://img.youtube.com/vi/y3q54weQius/hqdefault.jpg","transcript_text":"the next talk will be about the fuel that drives that engine josh daniels is the head of funding at near foundation uh you may have heard about the 800 million ecosystem funds news that was dropped recently he is the person with the keys to those funds and he will be discussing founders and funding in his top please welcome josh to the stage hello everyone thank you i don't know if those keys work every day but uh we'll see uh but yeah as um was mentioned i head up the funding team here at near um and today really going to talk about sort of how we have now started to build out a funding platform that ultimately is supporting founders basically here's kind of a quick agenda of what i'm hoping to cover i would really love to leave some time for q a in the room if anyone have questions but basically the goal of this session is really to give clarity to everyone both here in lisbon as well as in the near verse understanding of what are the funding uh options within the ecosystem and how best to uh engage with us in order to capture that funding so let's uh start first with sort of defining what the funding platform is uh because that's a pretty nebulous term uh so here's really kind of how we think about it is that the foundation awesomely is focused on providing capital and support to projects at varying stages of growth and development within the ecosystem obviously as todd and others have mentioned we're fairly early on in the development of the ecosystem given maine that's been online for a little over a year but for us we see projects accelerating in growth and building raising capital externally uh launching a mainnet touching tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of users and we want to make sure our funding options meet them where they are in terms of what capital they need what support they need and what guidance they need and really the funding platform is about developing those tools and channels to support them as they grow so we launched our funding efforts in february this past year and so really want to start out by giving a bit of a background on our mvp funding program our minimal viable product program that has been running for the last six or so months so this program as i mentioned was launched in february of 2021 it was really a community effort within the ecosystem with folks from a lot of our core teams devrel our operations team our infrastructure team really was it all hands on deck approach and the goal was really to stand up our grants program uh which is really non-equity uh capital that we give to projects that are bootstrapping and developing within the ecosystem to date we've deployed 45 million dollars to i think at this point now we're over 130 projects year to date and that's going to sort of today so it's really been a quite a bit of an acceleration in growth and focus in terms of projects we also were able to launch our fast grants program this past quarter and i'll go in a little bit of the details there but ultimately the goal of that program is really to provide grant support to projects very quickly one of the things we've heard throughout the web 3 ecosystem is that the time it takes from applying to a grant or inquiring about a grant is usually quite long can be sort of three to six months and one of the things we're constantly focused on in the near ecosystem is shortening that time in our fast grants program is really core to that here are a few highlights of some grants we've given out to date which really kind of showed the diversity of projects that we're focused on and also both in terms of sort of sector and focus uh but then also in terms of where they're at in uh sort of development stage um so you have tri solaris here uh who's uh um deployed on aurora um as a centralized exchange uh lequality which recently raised a seven million dollar round uh for a cross chain uh across blockchain uh wallet um and so obviously they're developing quite mature in terms of their growth comparatively to some of these other projects kroncat which is a crowd favorite and is really focused on bringing dev tools and support uh within the ecosystem and then kurtosis which has been partnering quite um well with our platform team and some of our core engineers as they're building out testing environments so really you can see here there's quite a diversity of projects and in the grant size and support it varies across all of these so you can see here this is important to note is that we've had a 400 growth rate in committed capital to grants um from q2 to q3 so you can see here some of the projects that are highlighted are ones that are received grants this is definitely does not include all of them but one of the really things we're focused on is again that speed of deployment um and the amount of capital we can deploy across all those projects so at this point um we've really realized that you know we are ready to move from our minimum viable stage into our funding platform stages is really around again showing those channels of support that are exist for projects to really capture funding uh within the ecosystem um and one of the core pieces of that as as mentioned before is our 800 million global ecosystem fund that was announced earlier this week and it's really a focus around giving the ecosystem um sort of the fuel that they need to build and grow and scale um so i'm going to break this uh sort of announcement down a little bit for folks so they can kind of understand the pieces here so 250 million of that is going to go to our near grants program and so as i mentioned before this is really around non-equity capital going directly to support new and existing projects and teams in the ecosystem so near knots for example is a project that todd and mark mentioned is an exact type of program where there's an idea there's a small team that wants to really experiment and develop that and we want to support them as they ultimately build and grow and sort of put out that alpha or mvp of that solution the next is our startup grants pool and this is really around us decentralizing our grants capital to support other up-and-coming growing projects across the ecosystem as they're looking to deploy capital to projects that are more related to their strategy so here you can think about us giving a sizable amount roughly around the 5 million dollar range in tokens to projects to ultimately stand up their own grants program um so again it really kind of decentralizes our focus and gives people the ability to to provide capital there the next is our regional regional ecosystem funds these funds are really going to be focused around various hubs within um various parts of the world uh where we want to basically support projects um in sort of the near ecosystem that's developing more in a concentrated fashion in those regions so lisbon will be one of those areas as you can see it was a lot of the activity we've had here over the last few days um and the last one which i know uh kendall spoke about yesterday is proximity labs d5 focus dao so proximity labs which is a separate entity from the foundation but again is very core and deep in our ecosystem is focused on bringing great projects both from other ecosystems into the near ecosystem but then also basically incubating and developing divi d5 projects from scratch to build natively on near so here we're going to talk about sort of what are the funding platform channels um and right now the best way to describe them is they fall into four particular uh areas um the first is the grants program uh dow funding direct investment and then our venture capital network and so i'll go into each of these specifically so you can understand the details first we'll talk about the grants program the grants program as i mentioned before is around bootstrapping high quality projects within the neuro ecosystem primarily with near tokens we also give out grants and stable coins in fiat but focus on near to really support their growth we have two sort of channels that we focus on there as well our fast grants program which has been mentioned before is really around us being able to provide grant capital up to fifty thousand dollars in near tokens within two days of us reviewing the project engaging with them and then filling out some very easy paperwork to ultimately satisfy that grant then we have our traditional grants program which is really around any grant from 5 000 up to 250 000 uh in in value that we look to sort of go out to the ecosystem and support projects and also people interested in coming into the ecosystem in order to apply for these you can go to near.org grants and fill out our application for our fast grants there's folks within our ecosystem and collective that have the ability to give those out if you are here at near con please reach out to folks at the partnership ecosystem floor at the near table who can help you talk through that and provide those grants directly to your project after giving them some detail also feel free to reach out to grants at near.foundation uh if you're interested as well one of the other things we're really excited that we just launched late yesterday is our refer and earn initiative and what this is really about is basically giving people in the ecosystem the ability to refer projects for grants and funding into the near ecosystem and ultimately earn up to ten thousand dollars uh in near tokens um and what that really is focused on is if any of you out there know any projects um that maybe are building on other chains or are at the sort of development stage and you think they would be a great fit for near please please reach out to us and provide those details and then ultimately if they are do receive a grant you'll be able to receive tokens corresponding to that grant size we're really excited about this program we're going to be talking about it a lot more throughout the rest of the conference and then beyond so keep an eye out for that so just wanted to kind of quickly touch here on sort of where are the areas of focus for us as it relates to the grants program and these this is not inclusive of everything we are very open to all ideas coming in but these are the ones that are really a focus for us right now so infrastructure tools and features so you can think of this such as wallets on-ramp off-ramp solutions things of that sort any and all aurora integrations we really are focused on supporting the aurora team as they're standing up the bridge and having uh teams integrate so try solaris was a perfect example of that type of grant and uh team uh native products and projects focused on ecosystem development so again this is around uh games um any type of nft projects or creative endeavors all of those kind of fall into this bucket we're also focused on marketplaces especially around nft so any types of opportunities that may relate to a particular type of creative art or modality of art or in a particular region we have several projects like that already that we're funding and excited about and the last one is educational content programming and initiatives so we have an education team here shashi is i know around the event and others uh but we're really focused on anyone developing content related to uh giving people uh guidance around the newer ecosystem in a broad way or directly around rust providing support both in grants and then also advisory around those those opportunities so next we're going to talk about dow funding so dow funding is a fairly new one for us um and it relates to sputnik dal v2 uh and astrodale launching um so with these two launching um and as jordan had mentioned before we have 200 plus uh currently dows that are in our ecosystem with a hundred of those or so being active on a monthly basis and one of the things we really are now focusing on is investing directly into those dows um and really kind of giving those teams uh the capital they need uh to start to foster their community and sort of move against their various strategies and so both the funding and community teams work together to review those proposals and make sure that all of those dows are receiving support and one of the things that we're really excited about is not just necessarily investing in dowels that are natively built on near but also looking at daos and other ecosystems that we want to support that ultimately we can see some cross-pollination or some projects that can really sort of traverse across so we're really excited about that um and here uh the focus is submit your proposals in the near form uh there's a how-to guide here with the link so in the near verse definitely reach out there but if you want to sort of talk through this directly i know david from our community team is here floating around and he'll be upstairs to talk about as well as members of our ecosystem success team so we're really excited about this and ultimately want to support dowse as they grow and scale in our ecosystem the next one i'll touch on briefly is direct investment and the way to think about this is that the foundation as we've saw before with the 800 million ecosystem fund wants to take a portion of that capital and invest directly in projects from an equity funding standpoint so you can think about this as basically the foundation acting as a venture capital investor one of the important things to note is that we're a passive investor for us it's really around creating those strategic relationships with projects that are either building natively on near or working on projects that ultimately want to make sure stay connected to our ecosystem and we see our funding team and this sort of channel as a way to provide that support um and really keep those ties uh uh remaining strong so any projects that you're interested in exploring this please reach out to grants near.foundation and we'll follow up to discuss directly the next and last one is our venture capital network so for this this is really ties quite closely to our ecosystem success team which presented just now and the focus here is that we have a pretty strong network of venture capital firms that are already actively engaged in the ecosystem interested in reviewing and meeting projects and we really want to continue to cultivate those relationships so right now we have over 85 vcs that we're actively in dialogue with and have come and engaged with projects on a regular basis and what we really want to do is make sure that projects that are building on near or engaged in our ecosystem are able to work with those vcs at the right time when they're ready to raise capital so we're really focused on providing those introductions giving support to these teams as they're developing pitch materials and ultimately putting them in a position to succeed as they're raising funding externally one of the things we're really focused on is helping our projects get to that next stage as was noted before by ilia and i'm sure eric will talk about it a bit later today as we've had projects in our ecosystem raise um over 50 million dollars already with only one year on main net in terms of external funding acro and we have many more announcements coming soon uh so we're very much excited about this as a goal for our ecosystem and ultimately this is a joint effort between the funding team and our ecosystem success team that is it hopefully that was helpful talking to our channels and giving you all some some ways to directly reach out to us engage but uh happy to answer any questions if anyone has in the room you talked about the fast grants i'm i'm on the ecosystem success team so i'm familiar with it but i was curious since we've been here for the two or you know about two days um our fast grant's actually happening here like while you're networking yes um it's actually i was reviewing that uh this eve this past evening uh we've had a couple dozen grants go out already uh since we've been here uh so the activity's been uh great um i think there's multiple folks uh wearing neocon shirts and or members of our community that are already talking to projects and sort of providing grants and and for us it's really again around sort of that distributed focus we don't want the foundation to be sort of the go-between for all of these grants we want to make sure that capital is flowing actively within the ecosystem can i ask can i ask please or other you you said or there's a regional fund or like are focusing on many of its sector area fields like well what fields or what sector or are you are interested in or focusing on like as a regional point right i i i we are a japanese-based company and already receive a grant from neo foundation thank you so much and uh yeah and also or we'd like to support more asian activity on here yes so uh we have a team that's based in mainland china that's been doing a lot of work we actually had a near con event going on in shanghai um this week which is well attended and i know that there's some uh materials and sort of details on that that have been uh shown on twitter and our blog but ultimately that team has been sort of figuring out what are going to be those sub-regions within asia where we'll be standing up uh those sort of ecosystem funds so more to come there we haven't decided on those specific areas yet but if we can we can chat uh separately and sort of talk through what that looks like but japan has definitely been a great market for us and would love to continue to kind of do work there so that's exciting maybe we'll take one more question cool well thank you everyone appreciate it you","transcript_synced_at":"2026-11-04T04:08:59.186Z","segments":[{"start_seconds":3,"text":"the next talk will be about the fuel that drives that engine josh daniels is the head of funding at near foundation uh you may have heard about the 800","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=3s"},{"start_seconds":12,"text":"million ecosystem funds news that was dropped recently he is the person with the keys to those funds and he will be","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=12s"},{"start_seconds":19,"text":"discussing founders and funding in his top please welcome josh to the stage hello everyone thank you i don't know if","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=19s"},{"start_seconds":29,"text":"those keys work every day but uh we'll see uh but yeah as um was mentioned i head up the funding team here at near um and","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=29s"},{"start_seconds":37,"text":"today really going to talk about sort of how we have now started to build out a funding platform that ultimately is supporting founders basically here's","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=37s"},{"start_seconds":46,"text":"kind of a quick agenda of what i'm hoping to cover i would really love to leave some time for q a in the room if anyone have questions but basically the goal of this","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=46s"},{"start_seconds":55,"text":"session is really to give clarity to everyone both here in lisbon as well as in the near verse understanding of what are the funding uh","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=55s"},{"start_seconds":63,"text":"options within the ecosystem and how best to uh engage with us in order to capture that funding","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=63s"},{"start_seconds":70,"text":"so let's uh start first with sort of defining what the funding platform is uh because that's a pretty nebulous term uh so here's really kind of how we think","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=70s"},{"start_seconds":79,"text":"about it is that the foundation awesomely is focused on providing capital and support to projects at varying stages of growth and development","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=79s"},{"start_seconds":87,"text":"within the ecosystem obviously as todd and others have mentioned we're fairly early on in the development of the ecosystem given maine that's been online","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=87s"},{"start_seconds":95,"text":"for a little over a year but for us we see projects accelerating in growth and building raising capital externally uh launching a mainnet","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=95s"},{"start_seconds":104,"text":"touching tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of users and we want to make sure our funding options meet them where they are","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=104s"},{"start_seconds":111,"text":"in terms of what capital they need what support they need and what guidance they need and really the funding platform is about developing those tools and","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=111s"},{"start_seconds":119,"text":"channels to support them as they grow so we launched our funding efforts in february this past year and so really","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=119s"},{"start_seconds":128,"text":"want to start out by giving a bit of a background on our mvp funding program our minimal viable product program that has been running for the last six or so","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=128s"},{"start_seconds":136,"text":"months so this program as i mentioned was launched in february of 2021 it was really a community effort within the","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=136s"},{"start_seconds":143,"text":"ecosystem with folks from a lot of our core teams devrel our operations team our","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=143s"},{"start_seconds":150,"text":"infrastructure team really was it all hands on deck approach and the goal was really to stand up our grants program uh which is really","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=150s"},{"start_seconds":158,"text":"non-equity uh capital that we give to projects that are bootstrapping and developing within the ecosystem to date we've deployed 45 million","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=158s"},{"start_seconds":167,"text":"dollars to i think at this point now we're over 130 projects year to date and that's going to sort of today so","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=167s"},{"start_seconds":174,"text":"it's really been a quite a bit of an acceleration in growth and focus in terms of projects we also were able to launch our fast","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=174s"},{"start_seconds":182,"text":"grants program this past quarter and i'll go in a little bit of the details there but ultimately the goal of that program is really to provide","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=182s"},{"start_seconds":191,"text":"grant support to projects very quickly one of the things we've heard throughout the web 3 ecosystem is that the time it takes from applying to a","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=191s"},{"start_seconds":199,"text":"grant or inquiring about a grant is usually quite long can be sort of three to six months and one of the things we're constantly","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=199s"},{"start_seconds":207,"text":"focused on in the near ecosystem is shortening that time in our fast grants program is really core to that","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=207s"},{"start_seconds":214,"text":"here are a few highlights of some grants we've given out to date which really kind of showed the diversity of projects that we're focused on","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=214s"},{"start_seconds":222,"text":"and also both in terms of sort of sector and focus uh but then also in terms of where they're at in uh sort of","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=222s"},{"start_seconds":229,"text":"development stage um so you have tri solaris here uh who's uh um deployed on aurora um as a centralized exchange uh","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=229s"},{"start_seconds":237,"text":"lequality which recently raised a seven million dollar round uh for a cross chain uh across blockchain uh wallet um","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=237s"},{"start_seconds":244,"text":"and so obviously they're developing quite mature in terms of their growth comparatively to some of these other projects kroncat which is a crowd favorite","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=244s"},{"start_seconds":252,"text":"and is really focused on bringing dev tools and support uh within the ecosystem and then kurtosis which has been partnering quite um well with our","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=252s"},{"start_seconds":262,"text":"platform team and some of our core engineers as they're building out testing environments so really you can see here there's quite a diversity of projects and in the grant size and","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=262s"},{"start_seconds":270,"text":"support it varies across all of these so you can see here this is important to","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=270s"},{"start_seconds":279,"text":"note is that we've had a 400 growth rate in committed capital to grants um from","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=279s"},{"start_seconds":286,"text":"q2 to q3 so you can see here some of the projects that are highlighted are ones that are received grants this is definitely does not include all of them but one of the really things we're","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=286s"},{"start_seconds":295,"text":"focused on is again that speed of deployment um and the amount of capital we can deploy across all those projects","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=295s"},{"start_seconds":302,"text":"so at this point um we've really realized that you know we are ready to move from our minimum viable stage into our funding platform stages is really","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=302s"},{"start_seconds":310,"text":"around again showing those channels of support that are exist for projects to really capture funding uh within the ecosystem","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=310s"},{"start_seconds":318,"text":"um and one of the core pieces of that as as mentioned before is our 800 million global ecosystem fund that was announced","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=318s"},{"start_seconds":325,"text":"earlier this week and it's really a focus around giving the ecosystem um sort of the fuel that they need to build","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=325s"},{"start_seconds":333,"text":"and grow and scale um so i'm going to break this uh sort of announcement down a little bit for folks","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=333s"},{"start_seconds":340,"text":"so they can kind of understand the pieces here so 250 million of that is going to go to our near grants program and so as i mentioned before","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=340s"},{"start_seconds":348,"text":"this is really around non-equity capital going directly to support new and existing projects and teams in the ecosystem so near knots for example is a","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=348s"},{"start_seconds":357,"text":"project that todd and mark mentioned is an exact type of program where there's an idea there's a small team that wants to really","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=357s"},{"start_seconds":364,"text":"experiment and develop that and we want to support them as they ultimately build and grow and sort of put out that alpha or mvp of that solution","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=364s"},{"start_seconds":373,"text":"the next is our startup grants pool and this is really around us decentralizing our grants capital to support other","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=373s"},{"start_seconds":381,"text":"up-and-coming growing projects across the ecosystem as they're looking to deploy capital to projects that are more related to their strategy","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=381s"},{"start_seconds":389,"text":"so here you can think about us giving a sizable amount roughly around the 5 million dollar range in tokens","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=389s"},{"start_seconds":396,"text":"to projects to ultimately stand up their own grants program um so again it really kind of decentralizes our focus and gives people the ability to to provide","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=396s"},{"start_seconds":405,"text":"capital there the next is our regional regional ecosystem funds these funds are really going to be focused around various hubs","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=405s"},{"start_seconds":413,"text":"within um various parts of the world uh where we want to basically support projects um in sort of the near ecosystem that's developing more in a","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=413s"},{"start_seconds":421,"text":"concentrated fashion in those regions so lisbon will be one of those areas as you can see it was a lot of the activity we've had here over the last few days um","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=421s"},{"start_seconds":430,"text":"and the last one which i know uh kendall spoke about yesterday is proximity labs d5 focus dao so proximity labs which is a separate","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=430s"},{"start_seconds":438,"text":"entity from the foundation but again is very core and deep in our ecosystem is focused on bringing great projects","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=438s"},{"start_seconds":446,"text":"both from other ecosystems into the near ecosystem but then also basically incubating and developing divi","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=446s"},{"start_seconds":454,"text":"d5 projects from scratch to build natively on near so here we're going to talk about sort","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=454s"},{"start_seconds":463,"text":"of what are the funding platform channels um and right now the best way to describe them is they fall into four particular uh areas um the first is the","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=463s"},{"start_seconds":471,"text":"grants program uh dow funding direct investment and then our venture capital network and so i'll go into each of","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=471s"},{"start_seconds":478,"text":"these specifically so you can understand the details first we'll talk about the grants program the grants program as i mentioned before","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=478s"},{"start_seconds":487,"text":"is around bootstrapping high quality projects within the neuro ecosystem primarily with near tokens we also give","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=487s"},{"start_seconds":494,"text":"out grants and stable coins in fiat but focus on near to really support their growth we have two sort of channels that we","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=494s"},{"start_seconds":502,"text":"focus on there as well our fast grants program which has been mentioned before is really around us being able to provide grant capital up to fifty","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=502s"},{"start_seconds":511,"text":"thousand dollars in near tokens within two days of us reviewing the project engaging with them and then filling out some very easy paperwork to","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=511s"},{"start_seconds":520,"text":"ultimately satisfy that grant then we have our traditional grants program which is really around any grant","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=520s"},{"start_seconds":526,"text":"from 5 000 up to 250 000 uh in in value that we look to sort of go out to the ecosystem and support projects and also","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=526s"},{"start_seconds":535,"text":"people interested in coming into the ecosystem in order to apply for these you can go to near.org grants","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=535s"},{"start_seconds":542,"text":"and fill out our application for our fast grants there's folks within our ecosystem and collective that have the ability to give those out if you are","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=542s"},{"start_seconds":549,"text":"here at near con please reach out to folks at the partnership ecosystem floor","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=549s"},{"start_seconds":558,"text":"at the near table who can help you talk through that and provide those grants directly to your project after giving them some detail","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=558s"},{"start_seconds":565,"text":"also feel free to reach out to grants at near.foundation uh if you're interested as well one of the other things we're really","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=565s"},{"start_seconds":573,"text":"excited that we just launched late yesterday is our refer and earn initiative and what this is really about is basically giving people in the","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=573s"},{"start_seconds":581,"text":"ecosystem the ability to refer projects for grants and funding into the near ecosystem and ultimately earn up to ten","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=581s"},{"start_seconds":590,"text":"thousand dollars uh in near tokens um and what that really is focused on is if any of you out there know any projects um that maybe are building on other","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=590s"},{"start_seconds":599,"text":"chains or are at the sort of development stage and you think they would be a great fit for near please please reach out to us","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=599s"},{"start_seconds":607,"text":"and provide those details and then ultimately if they are do receive a grant you'll be able to receive tokens corresponding to that grant size we're","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=607s"},{"start_seconds":615,"text":"really excited about this program we're going to be talking about it a lot more throughout the rest of the conference and then beyond so keep an eye out for","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=615s"},{"start_seconds":623,"text":"that so just wanted to kind of quickly touch here on sort of where are the areas of","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=623s"},{"start_seconds":631,"text":"focus for us as it relates to the grants program and these this is not inclusive of everything we are very open to all ideas","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=631s"},{"start_seconds":640,"text":"coming in but these are the ones that are really a focus for us right now so infrastructure tools and features so you can think of this such as wallets","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=640s"},{"start_seconds":647,"text":"on-ramp off-ramp solutions things of that sort any and all aurora integrations we really are focused on supporting the","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=647s"},{"start_seconds":655,"text":"aurora team as they're standing up the bridge and having uh teams integrate so try solaris was a perfect example of that","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=655s"},{"start_seconds":662,"text":"type of grant and uh team uh native products and projects focused on ecosystem development so again this is","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=662s"},{"start_seconds":669,"text":"around uh games um any type of nft projects or creative endeavors all of","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=669s"},{"start_seconds":676,"text":"those kind of fall into this bucket we're also focused on marketplaces especially around nft so any types of opportunities that may relate to a","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=676s"},{"start_seconds":684,"text":"particular type of creative art or modality of art or in a particular region we have several projects like that already that we're","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=684s"},{"start_seconds":692,"text":"funding and excited about and the last one is educational content programming and initiatives so we have an education team here shashi is i know","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=692s"},{"start_seconds":701,"text":"around the event and others uh but we're really focused on anyone developing content related to uh giving people uh","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=701s"},{"start_seconds":707,"text":"guidance around the newer ecosystem in a broad way or directly around rust providing support both in grants and","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=707s"},{"start_seconds":715,"text":"then also advisory around those those opportunities so next we're going to talk about dow","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=715s"},{"start_seconds":725,"text":"funding so dow funding is a fairly new one for us um and it relates to sputnik dal v2","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=725s"},{"start_seconds":732,"text":"uh and astrodale launching um so with these two launching um and as jordan had mentioned before we have 200 plus uh currently","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=732s"},{"start_seconds":740,"text":"dows that are in our ecosystem with a hundred of those or so being active on a monthly basis and one of the things we really are now","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=740s"},{"start_seconds":748,"text":"focusing on is investing directly into those dows um and really kind of giving those teams uh the capital they need uh","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=748s"},{"start_seconds":755,"text":"to start to foster their community and sort of move against their various strategies and so both the funding and community teams work together to review those","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=755s"},{"start_seconds":763,"text":"proposals and make sure that all of those dows are receiving support and one of the things that we're really excited about is not just necessarily","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=763s"},{"start_seconds":771,"text":"investing in dowels that are natively built on near but also looking at daos and other ecosystems that we want to support that","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=771s"},{"start_seconds":779,"text":"ultimately we can see some cross-pollination or some projects that can really sort of traverse across so we're really excited","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=779s"},{"start_seconds":786,"text":"about that um and here uh the focus is submit your proposals in the near form uh there's a how-to guide here with the link so in the near verse definitely","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=786s"},{"start_seconds":795,"text":"reach out there but if you want to sort of talk through this directly i know david from our community team is here floating around and he'll be upstairs to","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=795s"},{"start_seconds":802,"text":"talk about as well as members of our ecosystem success team so we're really excited about this and ultimately want to support dowse as they grow and scale","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=802s"},{"start_seconds":810,"text":"in our ecosystem the next one i'll touch on briefly is","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=810s"},{"start_seconds":818,"text":"direct investment and the way to think about this is that the foundation as we've saw before with the 800 million ecosystem fund","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=818s"},{"start_seconds":827,"text":"wants to take a portion of that capital and invest directly in projects from an equity funding standpoint so you can think about this as basically the","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=827s"},{"start_seconds":835,"text":"foundation acting as a venture capital investor one of the important things to note is that we're a passive investor for us it's really around creating those","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=835s"},{"start_seconds":843,"text":"strategic relationships with projects that are either building natively on near or working on projects that ultimately want","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=843s"},{"start_seconds":851,"text":"to make sure stay connected to our ecosystem and we see our funding team and this sort of channel as a way to provide that support um and really keep","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=851s"},{"start_seconds":859,"text":"those ties uh uh remaining strong so any projects that you're interested in exploring this please reach out to","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=859s"},{"start_seconds":867,"text":"grants near.foundation and we'll follow up to discuss directly the next and last one is our venture","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=867s"},{"start_seconds":874,"text":"capital network so for this this is really ties quite closely to our ecosystem success team","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=874s"},{"start_seconds":883,"text":"which presented just now and the focus here is that we have a pretty strong network of venture capital","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=883s"},{"start_seconds":890,"text":"firms that are already actively engaged in the ecosystem interested in reviewing and meeting projects and we really want","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=890s"},{"start_seconds":897,"text":"to continue to cultivate those relationships so right now we have over 85 vcs that we're actively in dialogue with","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=897s"},{"start_seconds":905,"text":"and have come and engaged with projects on a regular basis and what we really want to do is make sure that projects that are building on near or engaged in","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=905s"},{"start_seconds":913,"text":"our ecosystem are able to work with those vcs at the right time when they're ready to raise capital so we're really focused","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=913s"},{"start_seconds":920,"text":"on providing those introductions giving support to these teams as they're developing pitch materials and ultimately putting them in a position to succeed as they're raising","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=920s"},{"start_seconds":929,"text":"funding externally one of the things we're really focused on is helping our projects get to that next stage as was noted before by ilia and i'm sure","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=929s"},{"start_seconds":936,"text":"eric will talk about it a bit later today as we've had projects in our ecosystem raise um over 50 million dollars already with only one year on","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=936s"},{"start_seconds":945,"text":"main net in terms of external funding acro and we have many more announcements coming soon uh so we're very much excited about this","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=945s"},{"start_seconds":952,"text":"as a goal for our ecosystem and ultimately this is a joint effort between the funding team and our ecosystem success team","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=952s"},{"start_seconds":963,"text":"that is it hopefully that was helpful talking to our channels and giving you all some some ways to directly reach out to us","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=963s"},{"start_seconds":970,"text":"engage but uh happy to answer any questions if anyone has in the room","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=970s"},{"start_seconds":980,"text":"you talked about the fast grants i'm i'm on the ecosystem success team so i'm familiar with it but i was curious since we've been here for the two or you know","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=980s"},{"start_seconds":987,"text":"about two days um our fast grant's actually happening here like while you're networking yes um it's actually i was reviewing that uh this","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=987s"},{"start_seconds":995,"text":"eve this past evening uh we've had a couple dozen grants go out already uh since we've been here uh so the activity's been uh great um i think","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=995s"},{"start_seconds":1004,"text":"there's multiple folks uh wearing neocon shirts and or members of our community that are already talking to projects and sort of","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=1004s"},{"start_seconds":1013,"text":"providing grants and and for us it's really again around sort of that distributed focus we don't want the foundation to be sort of the go-between","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=1013s"},{"start_seconds":1020,"text":"for all of these grants we want to make sure that capital is flowing actively within the ecosystem can i ask can i ask","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=1020s"},{"start_seconds":1029,"text":"please or other you you said or there's a regional fund or like are focusing on many of its","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=1029s"},{"start_seconds":1038,"text":"sector area fields like well what fields or what sector or are you are interested in or focusing on like as a regional","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=1038s"},{"start_seconds":1046,"text":"point right i i i we are a japanese-based company and already receive a grant from neo foundation","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=1046s"},{"start_seconds":1054,"text":"thank you so much and uh yeah and also or we'd like to support more asian activity on here yes so uh we have a team that's based in","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=1054s"},{"start_seconds":1062,"text":"mainland china that's been doing a lot of work we actually had a near con event going on in shanghai um this week which is well attended and i know that there's","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=1062s"},{"start_seconds":1070,"text":"some uh materials and sort of details on that that have been uh shown on twitter and our blog but ultimately that team has been sort of figuring out what are going to be","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=1070s"},{"start_seconds":1079,"text":"those sub-regions within asia where we'll be standing up uh those sort of ecosystem funds so more to come there we","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=1079s"},{"start_seconds":1087,"text":"haven't decided on those specific areas yet but if we can we can chat uh separately and sort of talk through what that looks like but japan has definitely been a great market for us and would","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=1087s"},{"start_seconds":1095,"text":"love to continue to kind of do work there so that's exciting maybe we'll take one more question cool well thank you everyone appreciate it","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=1095s"},{"start_seconds":1117,"text":"you","url":"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius&t=1117s"}],"youtube_url":"https://youtube.com/watch?v=y3q54weQius","url":"https://near-pedia.xyz/videos/y3q54weQius"}