Kava Grants

Accelerating growth of the Kava DeFi ecosystem.

As a core developer of Kava, we believe Kava Labs’ primary role is to facilitate the development of the platform and allocate resources into entities, projects, and initiatives that will help accelerate Kava’s adoption and encourage it’s long-term sustainability. Kava Grants will be one of the primary tools going forward to support key contributors to Kava’s mission.

What Gets Funded

Kava Grants will be funding:

1. Research & Education
2. Software Development
3. Community Initiatives

From time to time, Kava will put out Requests for Proposals (RFP) in each of these categories.

In addition, we will have an open-ended application for any proposals that do not fit in these categories but still align with our major goals of accelerating Kava’s adoption and long-term sustainability.

Research & Education

Research and education about Kava’s platform and its related technologies may lead to important innovations, implementations, and insights that will enable our community to better navigate the fast changing world of DeFi and blockchain. We aim to support economic research, technology research, and a variety of education initiatives such as training and documentation so that Kava’s community can be empowered to grow as it needs to.

Software Development

Funding development initiatives both expands the bounds of Kava’s capabilities and accelerates Kava’s go-to-market time. We aim to support a wide variety of development initiatives including the development of new tools for Kava’s users to interact with the platform, integrations with applications, development of new applications, implementation of bridges or pegging mechanism so that new assets can enter the Kava platform, smart contract/code audits, as well as other areas.

Community Programs

Many people and organizations make up the growing community of Kava. With community grants we aim to enable growth initiatives, empower community leaders, content creators, and support others that are making meaningful contributions to the health of our community. In addition we will be funding various incentive programs to drive adoption of the Kava platform.

Funding Types

Kava Grants come in the following types:

1. Service Agreements
2. Direct Grants
3. Investments

Service Agreements

Service agreements are used to fund well-defined short-term projects and are the ideal route for product development and engineering focused projects that align with our goals. Companies that engage in service agreements will be vendors/consultants of Kava. The typical service agreement duration will last 3 months and funding will be dispersed as services are rendered.

Grants

Grant awards are investments in people, companies, and projects that will positively impact the vision of Kava. Typically grants are ideal for research and development, infrastructure projects, and other not-for-profit initiatives that will benefit the whole Kava ecosystem. Various important research, development, and community programs will require grant funding in advance of work done. An in-depth application and proposal is required for these projects and the review process will be more thorough considering various risk factors and ensuring goals and milestones are clearly defined prior to funding.

Investments

Investments are specifically for businesses that help advance the growth of the Kava platform. In return, the company will allocate their equity or tokens.

Evaluation Process

Briefly outlined here is the process of evaluation and stages an application moves through in order to receive a Kava Grant.

1.) Submission Deadline

All Kava Grant applications for a given Request for Proposal (“RFP”) period must be submitted no later than the specified application deadline for that period. No applications will be evaluated after the deadline.

2.) Initial Evaluation

An initial review is conducted to assess the application’s eligiblility for funding under the RFC categories. After the review is complete, applicants will be informed immediately if their application will not be considered for the given RFC period.

3.) Comprehensive Evaluation

Next, all applications that pass the initial review are sent to the Kava Grants Committee where the evaluation criteria is applied to the application.

The Kava Grant Committee is comprised of researchers, engineers, entrepreneurs, premium institutions, significant Kava ecosystem stakeholders and other community members. As in the initial evaluation phase, after the comprehensive evaluation, applicants will be informed immediately if their application will not be considered for the given RFC period.

4.) Phone Evaluation

Following the comprehensive evaluation, applicants will be contacted for a telephone conference to align on:

• General goals;
• Any modifications to, and further details of, applicant’s scope of work, timelines, budget, milestones, deliverables or any other item of the application that requires clarification;
• Determine what type of funding best suites the application (e.g. Service Agreement, Grant, etc.)

Please note application funding is not yet approved at this stage, and there may be a back and forth period before processing the application to the next stage.

5.) Kava Grant Committee Vote

A summary of interactions, evaluations, and application will be submitted to the Kava Grant Committee for voting. All applicants will be informed about the final decision following these votes.

Approved applicants will begin the process of due diligence.

6.) Due Diligence Process

A round of organizational, individual, and legal due diligence will begin and may include background checks and verification of prior work history, projects, skills, references, etc. All applicants at this stage will be KYC’d and screened against OFAC, AML, and other relevant databases.

7.) Kava Grant Committee Approval

Once applicants have passed all necessary due diligence, legal agreements are drafted and applicants will receive paperwork for review and execution.

Timeline

The evaluation process takes 3–8 weeks.

Evaluation Criteria

Outlined here is a non-exhaustive list of criteria that is applied to applications.

Application Quality

• Detailed and complete. Each question is important, not answering questions does not increase chances of approval.
• Applicants answer questions thoughtfully. Thought and planning is put into responses.

Budget Request

• Detailed and complete.
• Estimated timelines are within reason. Application with reasonable timelines for the industry increase their chances of approval.
• Budget estimates, given timeline, is within reason. Applications with reasonable budgets significantly increase their chances of approval. Applications with unreasonable budgets have almost no chance for approval.

Sustainability

• Does the applicant have a plan for existing in the industry after funding runs out? Showing a plan to be available to see the fruits of deliverable.

Distribution

• Does applicant have a plan to distribute the deliverable into the hands of the KAVA ecosystem? Deliverables which are perceived to not be widely used have almost no chance of being funded.
• Will applicants deliverable have a large impact on the ecosystem?

Risks

• What types of risk are associated with funding the applicant? E.g. legal, regulatory, reputational, operational, or management risk etc.

Conflict of Interest

• What are the conflicts of interest in funding the applicant?

Historic Kava Platform Participation

• Has the applicant participated in the Kava ecosystem prior to apply for a Kava Grant? Will the applicant promote the deliverable? Do they already promote the Kava ecosystem?
• Have they promoted other ecosystems? To what success?

Technical Due Diligence (Team Quality / Track Record)

• What has the applying team delivered previously? What impact has those deliverables had?
• Is the applicant determined/motivated?
• Do they have the competence/skills to deliver?
• Comprehensive evaluation of applicants past projects and github.
• Is the applicants proposed deliverable easily testable?
• Does the applicant have a reasonable view of how the deliverable’s impact can be assessed?

Conclusion

Are you interested to learn more about the Kava funding process?

Contact grants@kava.io to learn more or apply for funding NOW!

Stay in touch!

• Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/kava_labs
• Join the conversation on Telegram: https://t.me/kavalabs
• Checkout our code: https://github.com/kava-labs

Disclaimer: This content is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should consult your own advisers as to those matters. References to any securities or digital assets are for illustrative purposes only, and do not constitute an investment recommendation or offer to provide investment advisory services. Furthermore, this content is not directed at nor intended for use by any investors or prospective investors, and may not under any circumstances be relied upon when making investment decisions.