Cardano Project Catalyst
Project Catalyst (Cardano) · Web3 community fund
VariesFund15 budget 18.5M ADA + 250K USDM; Pilot 2026: 2.5M ADA, 50k–200k per project; per-proposal caps set per category
Cardano's community-voted innovation fund. Anyone can submit a proposal, and ADA holders vote on which ones get funded.
Key terms
- Ideas can come from anyone, anywhere
- Funding decided by community vote (Pilot 2026 used a decision panel)
- Proposals compete within category budgets
- Pilot 2026 pays in stages: 40% upfront, up to 40% on targets, 20% on sustained usage
- Watch projectcatalyst.io for the next fund's submission window
Eligibility
- Where
- Worldwide
- Stages
- idea, pre-seed, seed
- Needs VC/accelerator backing
- No
- Needs partner referral code
- No
- Must be incorporated
- No
- AI focus required
- No
- Students / researchers
- Eligible
- Nonprofits
- Eligible
Also required
- Project should benefit the Cardano ecosystem
How to apply
Submit an idea during an open fund's submission window, then follow the community review and voting stages. See docs.projectcatalyst.io.
- Benefit
- cash
- Equity-free
- Yes
- Decision time
- —
- Credit validity
- —
- Deadline
- Rounds (no fund open as of Oct 2026; Fund15 closed Nov 2025, Pilot 2026 closed 2026-08-20)
- Status
- Paused — next round TBA
Verified 2026-10-23 · source