Cardano’s Project Catalyst Now Supports 100 Start-ups

According to data on June 23, Project Catalyst, the world’s largest decentralized fund for Cardano start-ups, now supports over 100 projects, releasing over $1.7 million in funding.

What is Project Catalyst?

Project Catalyst, an initiative by Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK) and the Cardano Foundation, aims to accelerate the growth of the Cardano ecosystem.

By vetting projects and providing requisite funding, ambitious founders can quickly realize their vision and mission statements.

Subsequently, their action empowers the community of developers, directly growing Cardano and the crypto sphere by extension. Besides, Project Catalyst promotes democracy and allows community members to vote on projects.

According to Frederik Gregaard of the Cardano Foundation, Project Catalyst is democratic and led by innovation:

The Cardano Foundation is dedicated to ensuring Catalyst is moving towards becoming a democratic platform for community-led innovation. To do this, we need active participation from our whole community.

Over 1k Proposals Expected In Fund9

All new Project Catalyst ideas can be submitted on the IdeaScale portal for feedback and voting done by the community.

The ninth round of Project Catalyst, Fund9, was launched earlier this month after the successful completion of Fund8 whose winners have already been announced.

Fund9 aims to attract at least 1k proposals with $16 million worth of ADA already designated for grants and ecosystem rewards.

The community is tasked with identifying and mentioning specific challenges on the network.

In turn, ideas of how to solve these problems are voted on, and worthwhile ideas receive funding to implement. Cardano keeps growing with its Project Catalyst initiative that encourages developers looking to fund their innovations around the Cardano network.

And as Harris Warren, Governance Group Product Lead, IO Global, said:

We started Project Catalyst with the ambition to decentralize innovation, and it’s incredible what the community has achieved in less than two years. We are now one of the largest decentralized innovation funds in the world.

So far, over 100 project proposals have been placed, indicating that this funding round could attract over 1k applications.