Hackathon Continuation Program (HCP) - updates

DAO Programs & Initiatives
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With the kick-off payment now received, we’re happy to kickoff this thread to update the DAO on our progress on the Hackathon Continuation Program.

TLDR on the program: a program of two phases where we take hackathon builders from customer discovery to building and MVP and market testing it. This pilot starts with 4 teams in Phase 1 and we’ll shortlist down to a maximum of 2 teams for phase 2. The program is structured as an investment, pioneering this capability in the DAO.

Progress update

We have selected the 4 teams for phase 1 from the cohort in the Arbitrum CollabTech Hackathon that happened in October. These projects are pre-pre-seed, meaning we’ll work with them from a rough idea to a solid business case during phase 1.

Two teams have completed KYC and are finalising the contract signing, while a further 2 are still completing KYC.

Below you can see our rationale for selecting these teams.

FairAI

Mission

Fair Protocol challenges the centralization of AI by creating an open marketplace where anyone can offer or consume AI services without relying on a single gatekeeper. This lowers barriers to entry for smaller operators and model creators, Fair Protocol democratizes AI innovation.

Their go to market focuses on data challenges of Manufacturing companies.

Market

  • (Traction)
  • With advanced AI models now integrated into countless industries, a decentralized marketplace breaks down entry barriers for smaller developers and fosters true competition. Sahara AI recently raised $43M to disrupt centralized AI (source: Sahara AI blog).
  • Market.us, projects the global blockchain AI market size to grow from $349 million in 2023 to $2,787 million by 2033. This represents a 23.1% growth of CAGR.
  • Individuals and organizations can select preferred operators based on cost, reputation, or specialized model capabilities—amplifying consumer choice while mitigating centralized power. Decentralized marketplaces enable organizations to select operators based on cost, reputation, and specialized capabilities (source: Artificial Intelligence Market).

Founders

  • Tiago: Robust blockchain dev background with data science. His master’s thesis on “Decentralized Federated Learning,” plus industry roles at WIT and C. Steinweg Group, demonstrates bridging advanced AI with practical on-chain solutions. He also led agile teams at FIKALAB, uniting AI, IoT, and blockchain in real-world deployments.
  • Luís: Full-stack developer specializing in blockchain and AI, having built production-grade software at Imaginary Cloud and FIKALAB. His bachelor’s and master’s in Software Engineering support rigorous approaches to secure IoT and smart contracts.

The founders have strong experience in the problem area they seek to address. Tiago’s work in decentralized federated learning and proven leadership in real-world AI blockchain projects and Luís’s engineering expertise ensures Fair Protocol balances security, scalability, and usability, is a great fit for what the team is trying to accomplish.

Opportunities for Arbitrum

  • Fair Protocol’s design naturally dovetails with Arbitrum’s low-fee, high-throughput environment—enabling seamless microtransactions for inference requests.
  • As model operators, creators, and curators engage on-chain, they drive increased transaction volume, reinforcing Arbitrum’s utility and fee revenue.
  • Fair Protocol can integrate easily with DAOs and,protocols, improving Arbitrum AI capabilities.

Contribo

Mission

Contribo sets out to become the “Fiverr” of Web3, where anyone can post tasks and contributors can bid transparently. By anchoring reputation on-chain, Contribo mitigates fraud risk and fosters a trust-based global community.

Unlike traditional freelancing platforms that often exclude individuals lacking formal credentials or banking services—particularly in Global Majority regions—Contribo leverages decentralized infrastructure to break down these barriers. Its on-chain reputation model gives contributors tangible proof of work history rather than relying on bureaucratic prerequisites, enabling broader economic participation and democratizing opportunity worldwide.

Market

  • The global gig economy is expected to be valued at $455 billion by the end of next year. And the freelance market alone is expected to grow at a CAGR of 15% year over year through 2026. This is a massive opportunity for increasing transaction fees from bounty payments, on-chain contracting, and reputation.
  • By allowing participants to build their track records directly on-chain, Contribo can increase trust and expand the usage of freelancers into more traditional sectors.
  • By enabling onchain payments and serving those without banking/reliable financial infrastructure (e.g. Global South regions), Contribo can draw fresh talent, further bolstering Arbitrum’s user base.

Founders

  • Juan brings a strong background in government affairs, strategic planning, and DAO structures. An early Ethereum adopter since 2015, he holds a deep alignment with decentralized principles. His experience in research, public security, and intelligence systems equips him with a solid grasp of security needs and effective incentive design—a crucial perspective for shaping Contribo’s trust and governance frameworks.
  • Aleksa has a hybrid skill set in web3 development—spanning front-end, Solidity, and machine learning research. Previously contributing at the Economic Space Agency, he focused on postcapitalist protocols and communal resource-sharing. His drive for building diverse, co-creative environments resonates directly with Contribo’s community emphasis, ensuring the platform fosters inclusion and collaboration at every level.

Juan’s leadership (government affairs, security, and incentive design) merges seamlessly with Aleksa’s skill set in web3 development and communal resource-sharing. This complementary mix of governance acumen and technical depth positions them to realize Contribo’s vision.

Opportunities for Arbitrum

  • Contribo’s success on Global South depends on fast, low-cost microtransactions for bounties and gigs—an ideal use case for Arbitrum’s scalable Layer 2 environment.
  • Contribo could expand Arbitrum’s user and talent base, and reduce costs for existing projects through geographical arbitrage.

WeLivedIt

Mission

Community-driven AI moderation platform built for content curation that empowers communities to govern their own on-chain AI models.

Market

  • Meets an urgent need: responsible AI moderation that upholds community values and safeguards against biased, opaque decision-making. AI governance market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 45.3% from 2024 to 2029 according to marketsandmarkets.
  • Opens the door to widespread adoption in communities that demand transparency, fairness, and accountability in decentralized systems.
  • Wider potential as a decentralised and personalised content moderation systems to solve issues in social media platforms.

Founders

  • Madhuri has spent the past decade challenging traditional economic paradigms by building critical skills for individuals and organizations. At the British Council, she transformed conventional spaces with programs on decentralized leadership and collaborative decision-making—growing the training team from 2 to 10 and forging partnerships with the British High Commission, Chevron, and BRAC NGO. Her digital transformation work broke geographic barriers: at HSBC, she expanded training completion to three siloed regions, and at the Scouts Association, her team’s digitization extended national volunteer training to over 7,000 participants. Now through her consultancy, Infinity Learning, Madhuri is driving impact by collaborating with Web3 startup ImpactScope on outcomes-based financing to onboard major clients to their Decentralised Impact Outcomes Marketplace.
  • Alex Zaremba, PhD, is a crypto economist and data scientist with 15 years of experience straddling finance, blockchain, and cryptoeconomics. At Hunter Labs Tech, he led as the Data Scientist, crafting advanced statistical models that drove product innovation and informed market strategy. His tenure at Pareto Investment Management saw him refining quantitative currency trading models that enhanced investment decisions, while at UCL, he spearheaded R&D on the ATRADE and DRACUS projects by developing an Electronic Market Simulator that streamlined complex financial systems. With published research that reshaped on-chain analytics and statistical causality, Alex bridges theory and practice. His mastery of Solidity, quantitative finance, and probability theory underpins his focus on sustainable token engineering, ensuring that token economies are designed with both ethical integrity and measurable impact in decentralized ecosystems.

Madhuri’ has a proven knack for driving impact and community engagement, combined with Zaremba’s 15 years of deep, ethical AI and cryptoeconomics expertise, making this a solid team for their specific area.

Opportunities for Arbitrum

  • Uses Arbitrum’s Stylus as a scalable, low-fee environment to run on-chain AI models that continuously improve through shared community input.
  • Enhances the ecosystem by merging tech with socially responsible design, paving the way for fair and inclusive on-chain governance.

Nightly

Mission

Nightly specializes in pairing complementary talent for co-founding teams, helping developers and innovators work seamlessly together. The platform provides a hackathon-like environment where future founders meet, ideate, and launch projects with ease.

Market

  • Workforce Shift Post-AI
    As AI-driven automation leads to layoffs, more professionals will seek entrepreneurial paths. Nightly helps them transition efficiently, creating new project teams at scale. There has been a general acceleration in layoffs in many industries, but also in technology where more than 1 million people were laid off by the largest employers since 2022 (source: https://www.trueup.io/layoffs)
  • Networking for Builders
    With millions looking to pivot, Nightly offers a structured matchmaking experience, connecting skilled tech talent with their ideal co-founders in a world increasingly open to starting something new.

Founders

  • Alex is a a serial entrepreneur who has launched multiple successful ventures, Alex is also the CEO of Aratta Labs—a blockchain development guild pushing the new creative economy. He studied at UC Berkeley (including its Rome campus) and has a background in technology, media, and film. Beyond that, he boasts multiple hackathon wins, including projects like MorpI2 ID (Sparkloom) and SolidGrant (ALLO on Arbitrum). View more on Buidlbox.
  • Amir is a passionate hacker and frequent hackathon winner, Amir has 14+ years of software engineering experience, an MS in Computer Science, and a specialization in NLP, Big Data, and Blockchain. Among his hackathon triumphs are MorpI2 ID (Sparkloom), SolidGrant (ALLO on Arbitrum), and DeezStealth (BuildHacks). His technical insight drives Nightly’s fast-paced, results-oriented environment, fostering rapid team-building and innovation. Check his Buidlbox profile.

Opportunities for Arbitrum

  • Talent Matchmaking
    By linking skilled developers with emerging ideas, Nightly fuels a surge of new Arbitrum-based projects. This broadens the ecosystem, drawing more usage and attention to Arbitrum.
  • Talent Funnel
    As big corporations shed workers, Nightly channels that talent into microteams ready to build on Arbitrum, fostering a pipeline of fresh, high-potential projects in the L2 space.
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so it appears that only 3 of the 4 projects selected were part of the original hackathon accepted projects, according to this list, but they were not the winners of the hackathon, only Contribo, from @Juanrah which got 3rd place in the original hackathon, according to this article, is an hackathon “winner” that is part of this continuation program.

FairAI was selected as part of this continuation program and they don’t seem to have participated in the original hackathon. Is this correct? Why were they included, instead of another hackathon project?

WeLivedIt and Nightly were not “winners” of the original hackathon.

The projects that got 1st and 2nd place in the original hackathon, Signals Protocol and Separated Powers, are not part of this program. why is that?

I’m asking this because the original Hackathon Continuation Proposal very clearly states that this program was aimed for the winners of the original collabtech hackathon.

So, why did we, Arbitrum, “lost” the 2 hackathon winners, by them not being part of this program?

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All projects selected were part of the hackathon. FairAi is the name of the company while their hackathon submission had a different name but they’re the same folks.

We discarded one of the winners (signals) because they’re part of a larger project, so not a good fit for the program. We’ll likely add something about this in the rules of future hackathon or equivalent programs.

Another was not a good fit for a venture, good hackathon project but not the same as doing a startup and very different founder mentality.

Ultimately winning a hackathon is a poor predictor of startup success so a lot more DD was done.

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Hey this is Arnold, Founder of Lighthouse/Signals here.

Just catching up on this, as one of our community members brought this to our attention.

For the record:

  • We were invited to apply to the program.
  • When we asked for the terms, RNDAO were unable to produce anything in writing.
  • “DD” was 2-3 conversations (~45min each) with various members, no materials were ever requested from us
  • We decided to not apply, as RNDAO wanted equity in Lighthouse and were not interested in just developing the Signals hackathon project, which we had developed as a standalone product.
  • No formal terms were ever provided for our evaluation.

As a founder, giving equity in Lighthouse, which is an existing company, was a non-starter for us.

We have continued to work on the Signals protocol as part of the Uniswap Hooks Incubator.

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As mentioned multipel times, we were unable to make an offer given your setup. And we indeed delayed offering anything in writing as we were lacking context about said setup until the last call we had (after you asked us to sing an NDA so you could share said context, also preventing me from sharing further details here about why said setup is not something we consider a fit for the program).

Ultimately I wish you well on your journey and I hope you understand that the program is not designed for every stage and configuration of projects but specifically about a hackathon continuation that needs to take Arbitrum interest into account as an investment program (comapred to e.g. pure grants that only need to account for potential transaction fees).

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Hackathon Continuation Program Report (Month 1)

We’re nearing the completion of the first month of the program and are happy to provide some updates. We’ll continue monthly communication from this point onwards unless there are any specific questions.

In the Words of the Ventures’ Leads

Venture Status Update

  • 3 out of 4 ventures have successfully gone through the first month of the program and we look forward to continuing the work with them throughout the rest of Phase 1 and 2.
  • Unfortunately, we’re discontinuing Nightly from the program. They accrued delays through some complications during the KYC process and after a month of working with them we have concerns about the ability of the team to catch up and deliver. Although not an ideal outcome, this is part of the continuous and close assessment designed into the program, allowing us to save Arbitrum funds.

Program Roadmap

Including internal checkpoints tracking and timelines:
https://www.notion.so/Hackathon-Continuation-Program-Roadmap-1cb786e9377980f9b5cdc2fbeac02b8a?pvs=4

Note on progress:
we accrued a few weeks of delay with the kick-off as aligning with the Arbitrum Foundation on contracting, conversion to stables, etc., took longer and more bandwidth than expected. However, the programme is now well on course.

Unfortunately, Phase 2 of the program is at risk due to the significant drop in the Arb market price and delays with conversion outside our direct control. We’ll be posting separately about this.

Ventures and Leads Info

Keep up directly with our ventures!

WeLivedIt

Madhuri

  • Telegram Handle: @M_adhuri
  • X Handle: MadhuriRahman
  • LinkedIn: Madhuri Rahman

Zaremba

  • Telegram Handle: @Zaremba_AAB
  • X Handle: -
  • LinkedIn: Zaremba Alex

FairAI

Luis

Tiago

Márcio

  • Telegram Handle: @MarcioGuia
  • X Handle: @Marcio__Guia
  • LinkedIn: Márcio Guia

Contribo

  • Website: -
  • Socials: -

Aleksa

JuanRah

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Hackathon Continuation Program Report (Month 2)

In the Words of the Ventures’ Leads

Venture Status Update

  • Completed successfully their outreach campaigns and user interviews
  • Have validated their problem statements
  • Have validated their value propositions
  • Launched public-facing campaigns sharing their progress (”building in public”)

All ventures are moving next into: competitive landscape analysis and market sizing.

Program Roadmap

Including internal checkpoints tracking and timelines:
https://www.notion.so/Hackathon-Continuation-Program-Roadmap-1cb786e9377980f9b5cdc2fbeac02b8a?pvs=4

Ventures and Leads Info

WeLivedIt

Website: www.welivedit.ai

Linkedin: Welivedit.AI | LinkedIn

Madhuri

  • Telegram Handle: @M_adhuri
  • X Handle: MadhuriRahman
  • LinkedIn: Madhuri Rahman

Zaremba

  • Telegram Handle: @Zaremba_AAB
  • X Handle: -
  • LinkedIn: Zaremba Alex

FairAI

Website: https://getfair.ai/

Twitter: https://x.com/getFairAI

Linkedin: FairAI | LinkedIn

Luis

Tiago

Márcio

  • Telegram Handle: @MarcioGuia
  • X Handle: @Marcio__Guia
  • LinkedIn: Márcio Guia

Contribo

Website: -

Socials: -

Aleksa

JuanRah

LinkedIn:

Juan Ramiro Garza

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Hackathon Continuation Program Report (Month 3, end Phase 1)

The first phase of the program is now complete. For 3 months, we worked closely with the founders to research a problem, envision a solution, analyse the market, and gather customer interest. The process also involves assessing the capabilities of the team, which led to 1 of the 4 projects being terminated.

As a result of Phase 1, two ventures have demonstrated enough customer interest and a market gap, and have been chosen to continue to Phase 2: Contribo and FairAI. Below, we’re sharing a brief overview of Phase 1 and the rationale behind the decision.

Phase 1 Summary

  • Weekly checkpoints allowed us to monitor each venture’s progress across key milestones like problem definition and market sizing.
  • Ventures received daily mentorship and feedback from the RnDAO team.
  • Teams were encouraged to ‘build in public,’ as highlighted in previous reports.
  • All teams received mentorship on outreach strategy and leveraged RnDAO’s network to engage target users, validate value props, and, in FairAI’s case, make a sale.
  • In the final 3 weeks, ventures focused on perfecting their (investor or sales) pitches through weekly training sessions, sharpening their value propositions, and market positioning.

Rationale for Venture Selection

FairAI

Executive Summary

FairAI completed Phase 1 by validating its offering after having iterated market positioning through real user feedback. They have achieved a pivotal spearhead sale to generate a first enterprise case study with a customer supportive of making further introductions. Their Agents marketplace of Manufacturing sector positioning is promising. We recommend advancing FairAI to Phase 2.

Customer Validation

Fair AI explored a variety of market segments and niches, finally selecting Manufacturing as the most interesting area. Although the team faced Manufacturing’s long sales cycles and multi-stakeholder sales, they have succeeded in closing an anchor customer with a 2-year contract and projected revenue of $100k+ p.a*. Other potential customers are in the pipeline.

Competitive and Positioning Analysis

Enterprise applications of AI are the new goldrush, however, FairAI has identified an underserved niche with growth potential. Competitors like Cohere have an advantage with large enterprise customers but lack industry focus, and customer research showed they’re unfamiliar names for medium-sized enterprise clients. Management consultants and development agencies do target the medium-size manufacturing sector with propositions around identifying opportunities for improvement with AI, but FairAI can offer a competitive proposition by discounting or even covering the costs of the initial assessment, as this directly leads to usage of their product or development contracts in their AI marketplace. As the niche moves from custom implementation to commoditised systems, FairAI is well-positioned to outcompete agencies through economies of scale and customer focus.

Iterations

FairAI has explored a variety of customer niches and distribution channels. Further validation work led to shifting attention towards the Manufacturing sector, and selecting a spearhead use case for validation (ongoing experiment).

Mentorship and RnDAO Engagement

FairAI founders engaged deeply with RnDAO’s operational support throughout 24+ hours of EiR workshops on messaging and sales, user research, and competitive analysis. They leveraged RnDAO’s network and Arbitrum Delegates support to secure 3 warm leads and close a sale.

Recommendation

FairAI has passed Phase 1 success criteria: they validated real demand, outperformed competitors in positioning tests, and demonstrated technical momentum with a committed team. FairAI is poised to grow revenue in Phase 2, potentially even attaining break-even with high growth potential.

FairAI Pitch (this investor pitch has not been updated as the team is focused on sales with sufficient runway): https://drive.google.com/file/d/10RYQOhOPmVovMAwo0dHg-CVRabWWuB6I/view

Contribo

Executive Summary

Contribo completed Phase 1 by validating its core hypothesis, iterating its prototype based on real user feedback, and refining its market positioning. Over three months, the team conducted in-depth interviews with developers, delegates, and DAO operators, distilled critical insights on on-chain reputation and fast payouts, and secured letters of intent from key protocol participants. Their clear “Fiverr of Web3” narrative and compelling product demo demonstrate readiness for the next stage. A key weakness lies in the team composition which will be an area of focus for Phase 2, with the team having agreed to do the necessary changes. We recommend advancing Contribo to Phase 2.

Customer Validation

Contribo’s founders led 18 video calls across five regions. Interviewees consistently emphasized the need for transparent, on-chain proof of work and immediate micro-payments—a direct response to governance failures they experienced with prior platforms. The team’s second iteration of their invitation message increased response rates by 40 percent, confirming both the problem’s ubiquity and the appeal of Contribo’s value proposition.

Competitive and Positioning Analysis

Contribo mapped the existing bounty landscape—including Algora’s on-chain bounties and past failures like SourceCred and Coordinape—and identified a clear gap: none treated contributions as enduring property with objective, cross-project metrics. In user tests, the characterisation of Contribo as the “Fiverr of Web3” resonated with 85 percent of potential customers participants. By aligning contributor incentives (skill recognition and autonomous bidding) with funder needs (reliable delivery without micromanagement), Contribo now occupies a differentiated position that leverages Arbitrum’s low-fee, high-throughput rails.

Iterations

Since the hackathon, Contribo has launched an interactive demo featuring task bidding, an on-chain reputation ledger, and a “fast payout” workflow that directly addresses delegate concerns. The codebase has been migrated to a public GitHub repository and a stable demo environment is live. The team has also outlined a clear MVP roadmap—prioritizing task listing, bidding, reputation display, and seamless payment rails—to guide development in Phase 2.

Mentorship and RnDAO Engagement

Contribo’s founders engaged deeply with RnDAO’s operational support, logging 24 hours of EiR workshops on messaging, user research, and competitive analysis. They leveraged RnDAO’s network to secure pilot MoUs with two protocol DAOs and received introductions to three Arbitrum-native accelerators (distribution partners). These partnerships not only validate market interest but also provide ready channels for beta testing and early user acquisition.
One team member indicated limited availability due to other commitments. Following a constructive discussion, they agreed to continue supporting the project in an advisory position and rescind their ownership if needed. We’ll recruit an additional team member.

Recommendation

Contribo has passed Phase 1 success criteria: they validated real demand. In our view, Contribo is poised to hit the 100-user milestone and drive on-chain activity in Phase 2. This second phase will thus focus on building the MVP and upgrading the team.

Contribo Pitch: Videos | Library | Loom - 12 June 2025 | Loom

Welivedit

Executive Summary

WeLivedIt completed Phase 1 by validating its core hypothesis, iterating its customer based on real user feedback, and refining its value proposition. Over three months, the team conducted in-depth interviews that show significant promise for their solution. Unfortunately, the resulting product direction does not seem to benefit from the usage of Arbitrum’s infrastructure, and as such we recommend not advancing WeLivedIt to Phase 2.
A limitation of the current program design is our inability to support this venture to explore iterations or blockchain use cases past the 3-month mark, despite the quality of the team. We plan to address this in future iterations of the program.

Customer Validation

WeLivedIt completed 20+ interviews, identifying a tangible pain point for a specific customer audience: journalists. Qualitative and quantitative data showcase strong customer interest and high perceived value of their proposed solution.

Competitive and Positioning Analysis

The team identified a strong niche positioning: underserved market segment with growth potential. Competitors offer lower quality products, poor problem-solution fit, and lack of customer awareness.

Iterations

WeLivedIt successfully iterated their original idea, away from a focus on community managers (low pain, complex sales) to journalists (high pain, simpler sales). They discovered a bottom-up way to tackle their market segment, ensuring fast feedback, potential for early revenue, and possible growth into larger B2B clients down the line. Overall, we’re impressed with the team’s ability to receive feedback and iterate.

Mentorship and RnDAO Engagement

WeLivedIt logged 23 hours of EiR workshops on messaging, user research, and competitive analysis. This resulted in a rethink of the business, away from communities as primary customers and towards targeting public individuals, resulting in a significantly more robust business case.

Recommendation

We’re very appreciative of the WeLivedIt team and excited by their pitch. However, the resulting product of Phase 1 does not count, in our view, with a significant enough alignment with Arbitrum. The use of blockchain technology can, in their case, come at the expense of faster go-to-market and stronger customer focus. As such, we recommend that WeLivedIt does not receive Phase 2 Arbitrum funding.

What’s next:

  • Phase 2 Launch: Already started this week
  • Goal: This phase supports product development, go-to-market strategy, and readiness for sustainable growth, whether through revenue (sales) or fundraising (investment readiness).
  • Process: After initial validation, founders often face the challenge of being spread too thin. We’ll help them focus by acting as a fractional C-suite, supporting product development, fundraising, team building, and operations. Our marketing team will also boost visibility and network access. See the timeline here.

Learnings

Overall, we find the Phase 1 program works to achieve its outcome: output venture concepts with validated market potential. However, we see a critical constraint for scalability in the funnel into this program - talent is the critical raw material. Hackathons serve to attract talent, but they come with the downside of also attracting mercenaries and good teams come attached to preconceived ideas. If this program were to be repeated, more work into the funnel feeding it would likely provide the highest leverage improvement.

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Hackathon Continuation Program Report (Month 4)

In the Words of the Ventures’ Leads

Venture Status Update

Contribo

MVP in development to test the first customer hypothesis.

Looking for a business-side cofounder to complete the team.

FairAI

Contract signing in process with the first customer. The agreed price will get the team to 10k MRR within 6 months.

Looking for intros to manufacturing companies (CEOs ideally).

Program Roadmap

Including internal checkpoints tracking and timelines:
https://www.notion.so/Hackathon-Continuation-Program-Roadmap-1cb786e9377980f9b5cdc2fbeac02b8a?pvs=4

What’s Next

Completed MVP: The ventures will demonstrate their ability to build and validate