Starknet Foundation unveils $5 million grant initiative

The goal of the funding is to assist developers with completing final-stage blockchain projects and to promote overall blockchain innovation. The Starknet Foundation announced a grant program totaling $5 million in USDC to support new projects on the network.

The $5 million Seed Grants Program is designed to back at least 200 promising teams, providing each recipient with $25,000 in USD Coin. The grants offer a “final push” to help late-stage projects launch on Starknet, an Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution utilizing ZK-rollup technology.

According to Diego Oliva, CEO of Starknet Foundation, the grants program was created in response to the main challenges faced by current Starknet developers. Oliva stated:

“We’ve been listening carefully to devs, and hearing about the main challenges they face. We are talking about people with amazing creativity and vision, who need support with that ever-hard ‘last mile’ to get a project over the line and into production. So we responded with this program which is intended, very directly and with minimal bureaucracy, to address this.”

The grants target Starknet-related projects that have already developed a minimum viable product (MVP) or proof-of-concept. According to Oliva, the program aims to drive more blockchain innovation. He noted:

“In general, we want to reduce the barriers and burdens young teams face when considering starting a project. We’re trying to clear the path to innovation.”

Starknet has been increasingly attracting more developers to its ecosystem. The total number of monthly developers reached over 22,400 in December 2023, a 113% increase over the last three years, up from 10,500 in December 2020, according to its developer report.

(Source: Starknet developer report)

When asked about the most exciting projects and protocol categories being built on Starknet, Oliva mentioned that blockchain gaming remains a key use case. He said:

"Starknet is leading the way in fully on-chain gaming. Key projects in this area include Realms, Influence, and Dojo. This sector is growing fast, with more teams building on Starknet using the Dojo standard. Gaming is important not just for gamers but for everyone because it's demanding on the network, testing its capabilities and demonstrating its power."

Blockchain gaming accounts for 35% of total decentralized application (DApp) activity, with over 2.2 million daily unique active wallets, according to DappRadar data.

Starknet Foundation's $5 million grant program aims to support late-stage blockchain projects and foster innovation by providing promising teams with funding and resources. This initiative helps ease the path for developers to launch their projects and encourages the growth of blockchain applications, particularly in the area of Web3 gaming.