Axelar believes that projects building natively cross-chain will onboard the next 100 million users onto the decentralized web. Therefore, we are excited to announce the second round of its grant program.

In the first round, Axelar provided startup grants to 23 early-stage Web3 projects that demonstrate what is possible cross-chain. We also provided mentorship and connections for these very early-stage projects, enabling many of them to raise seed financing and form connections with valuable partners.

In short, the Axelar Grant Program has become a focal point for investors, developers and partners interested in the cutting edge of Web3 interoperability and cross-chain development.

An accelerator and a grant program

Round 2 of Axelar’s cross-chain grant program will proceed in two tracks.

1. Partnership with LongHash Ventures

LongHash Ventures is Asia's first Web3 Accelerator and one of the leading Web3 VCs in Asia. Their LongHashX Accelerator has produced nine cohorts, with critical Web3 infrastructure partners, including Algorand, Filecoin and Polkadot. Alumni projects include Astar, Balancer and Instadapp. So far, more than 60 projects have participated, with LongHash Ventures helping them raise more than $150 million in funding.

The new cohort with Axelar, the LongHashX Accelerator Cohort 10, will select early-stage projects that are pursuing a promising vision for cross-chain applications and infrastructure.

Selected projects will receive up to $100,000 of up-front investment from LongHashX, as well as support with further fundraising from other investors. Weekly one-on-one problem-solving sessions are also part of the program, along with fireside chats with leaders in the blockchain space.

The partnership was announced Tuesday afternoon UTC via Chainwire. Applications for the LongHashX Accelerator Cohort 10 are open until November 11, 2022. Project teams interested in applying for the program can do so here.

2. Axelar grants continue to catalyze the early stage

Given the success of the first round of its grant program, Axelar will continue focusing on early-stage projects and curating a pipeline of applications and platforms that are building toward the cross-chain future.

Projects that are still in the R&D phase or ideation phase are also encouraged to apply, via the same form. Projects receiving grants from Axelar will be invited to join the LongHashX Accelerator program's fireside chats.

Axelar grants themes

Axelar encourages any cross-chain project to apply for the LongHashX Accelerator Cohort 10 and the Axelar program. The following themes are particularly interesting to us:

• Cross-chain DeFi / NFTs.
• Messaging. The number of users having access to wallets keep increasing. We can connect them together by enabling simple messaging across their interfaces: contact a user on any chain by sending them a message. Simple use-cases include notifying your users of a software upgrade, airdrop or extra reward.
• Wallets. Build a simple wallet that can interact with any asset on any chain.
• Identity. Build a portable identity that can include information about your credit profile, authentication, etc.
• Privacy. Cross-chain privacy-preserving coins.
• Application-level protocols/middleware. Interoperability is not a destination, it’s a journey. Layers of protocols need to be build to make it as simple as possible for users to transact cross-chain. (Think HTTPs/SMTP on top of TCP/IP.) These protocols may enable developers to build common sets of applications (like messaging, or sending NFTs cross-chain), or be used as building blocks in other applications. (One example is
• Squid
• as a payment router on top of Axelar.) Think about how to make cross-chain DeFi deposits easier, how to trade NFTs cross-chain. Are there building blocks that could enable those types of applications to be built more easily?
• Cross-chain oracles.
• Open category. Did we miss something? Please tell us about it.

How to apply & stay informed

Like what you see? Send us an application here.

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