Firestarters’ grants are supposed to fund work that will ignite a fire for fully-fledged initiatives, without, however, funding the initiatives themselves. In that spirit, we will be looking to fund individuals or teams to work on exploring the feasibility or setting the groundwork for initiatives the DAO can undertake, and which fall under one of the following categories:
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Creation of additional revenue streams for Arbitrum, or an increase in the revenue generated from existing ones
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Builder support initiatives for verticals other than DeFi (e.g., RWAs, DePIN, AI)
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Unifying initiatives across and between the DAO and the broader ecosystem
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Open track
The budget we’ll allocate to the Firestarters Fund is $50,000, and the maximum amount for any individual grant is $10,000.
Application
You can apply to the program by filling in a quick form here. [1]
Evaluation of Applications
To better understand the things we’ll be looking at when evaluating applications, the OpCo has put together the evaluation matrix below.
Evaluation Matrix
| Planning & End Goals | Expertise & Positioning | Strategic Relevance & Timing | Grant Size & Impact | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| High | There’s a clearly outlined plan with defined steps and a specific end-goal | The applicant has relevant expertise and/or experience, and they’re well-positioned to execute on the grant scope | The application falls within the defined categories or has strong strategic alignment with existing initiatives undertaken by AAEs or the DAO | The grant size is competitive when measured against market rates, and the potential impact of it is high |
| Medium | There’s an end-goal in sight, but there’s no defined plan to get there | The applicant has relevant expertise, but they do not have a strong positioning within Arbitrum | The application has potential strategic relevance, but the timing is not optimal | The grant size is not competitive, but the potential impact of it is high |
| Low | There’s no specific end goal in sight, but there’s a specific plan to research and figure out if one should exist | The applicant has good positioning within Arbitrum, but not the relevant domain expertise for the scope of the grant | The application has good timing, but does not align with existing initiatives or workstreams of AAEs or the DAO | The grant size is competitive, but its impact is low |
| Minimal | There’s no specific end goal in sight, and there’s no research plan. The application is an open exploration | The applicant doesn’t have relevant experience or expertise, and they’re not well-positioned in Arbitrum | The application doesn’t come at a good time, and the scope of work doesn’t align with existing initiatives from AAEs or the DAO | The grant size is not competitive, and the potential impact of it is low |
Terms and Conditions & Privacy
To apply to Firestarters, one has to agree to the program’s Terms and Conditions, as well as to the Privacy Policy of the OpCo.
For Delegates
Given the small grant size, we want to focus on quality over quantity, and that’s why we will not be doing a big communication push for the program. We’ll focus more on proactively identifying potential areas where a Firestarter grant could make sense, and we appreciate any referrals that you make to the program.
To keep up with the program, you can refer to this dashboard where we’ll regularly update the status of each grant application. Additionally, we’ll publish a monthly report in the forum with quick updates on the progress of each grant.
For any questions or concerns, please reach out to Sinkas on Telegram (Sinkas5)
Successful applicants will need to complete KYC/KYB and sign a grant agreement with the OpCo to receive funds. ↩︎