VIP-11: Catalyst Beta Program - Funding Experiment for SynBio Research Moonshots

General
1

Summary

This proposal aims to allocate funding to support a greater quantity of high-impact climate biotech research projects through a collaboration with Molecule Catalyst. The initiative combines resources from ValleyDAO to select and fund promising projects, enhancing the number of IP assets in the ValleyDAO treasury. The proposal includes a budget of up to $50,000 and outlines a governance framework for project selection and funding approval.

Background

ValleyDAO has been executing a strategy on allocating significant portions of its treasury toward high quality, high conviction projects. To supplement this strategy, ValleyDAO is seeking to consider ways to increase the size of its IP portfolio through co-funding of research through a syndicate approach. To this end, we are pursuing a partnership with Molecule with its launch of Catalyst, to enable the ValleyDAO community and other members of the DeSci ecosystem to help co-fund projects in partnership with ValleyDAO.

Catalyst is a product Molecule is developing that enables direct, decentralized funding of research projects proposed by the community. By co-funding projects on Catalyst, ValleyDAO hopes to enable more of its community members to fund and co-govern projects alongside the DAO, enable the community to get more involved in the research, and add more projects to its portfolio. Collaborating with Molecule Catalyst, which connects researchers, biotech experts, and funders, provides an effective platform for sourcing and supporting these projects. ValleyDAO serves to benefit from Molecule’s efforts to open new capital pools to fund synthetic biology and climate biotechnology research.

Molecule Catalyst Overview

Molecule Catalyst is a platform designed to facilitate the funding of translational research projects. It connects researchers with funders by arming researchers with a platform to get funding with web3. This collaboration aligns with ValleyDAO’s mission to fund, tokenize and bridge climate biotechnology research from the bench to the market.

The Proposal

Objective

To collaborate with Molecule Catalyst to fund and accelerate high-potential climate biotechnology research projects, turning successfully funded initiatives into impactful translational research outputs. The intention is that ValleyDAO would fund part of two larger $50-100k projects, with the remaining coming from Molecule Catalyst.

Funding Allocation

  • Total Budget: Earmarking up to $50,000
  • Project Focus: High-impact climate biotechnology research with translational potential
  • Project Count: Up to 2 projects

Implementation Plan

Sourcing Projects:

  1. Molecule Catalyst will source potential projects aligned with ValleyDAO’s research priorities
  2. ValleyDAO will suggest specific project types or areas of interest.

Funding Approval:

  1. Projects meeting the criteria will be first proposed to the ValleyDAO dealflow working group

  2. A poll approving / denying funding, followed by a poll for capital allocation amount will be governed by the ValleyDAO dealflow working group

  3. Projects meeting the criteria will be presented to the ValleyDAO community for approval via a soft-governance proposal.

  4. Each project will require a governance vote by GROW token holders to secure funding from the treasury.

Project Management:

  1. Molecule will manage the funded projects, providing regular updates and ensuring milestones are met.
  2. ValleyDAO and direct funders of projects on Catalyst will receive reports on progress and impact, ensuring progress is being made.

Expected Outcomes

  • Support and accelerate up to two high-potential climate biotechnology projects.
  • Enhance ValleyDAO’s mission by funding innovative research with potential for significant scientific and commercial impact.
  • Foster tighter collaboration between researchers, funders, the broader ValleyDAO community, and Molecule, creating a more connected ecosystem for climate biotechnology research.

Timeline

  • Project Initiation: If / when the proposal passes
  • Project Completion: December 31, 2024
  • Agree
  • Disagree (comment is encouraged)
  • Needs Revision (comment is mandatory)
0 voters
1 Like
2

I agree with this initiative, however I have a couple of questions.

In the implementation plan, why can’t ValleyDAO or ValleyDAO community source projects?

The point is to co-fund research with ValleyDAO and/or Molecule community.

How will the proposal to the dealflow working group look like? What will it include?

What would happen if more than 2 projects are awesome and meet the funding criteria?

If we fund research projects and get part of the IP (after proposal amount is reached), why is Molecule doing the project management? Don’t we have more expertise on how it can be developed and have its goals reached?

The expected outcomes state “Support and accelerate up to two high-potential climate biotechnology projects.”, however the proposal does not state anything about support and/or acceleration, it solely focuses on allocating funds. Also, how will “tighter collaboration” will be fostered if all we do is provide funds?

1 Like
3

In the implementation plan, why can’t ValleyDAO or ValleyDAO community source projects?

We’re currently already at full capacity within dealflow in terms of sourcing. Passing this governance proposal would onboard Molecule’s capabilities to our sourcing efforts.

How will the proposal to the dealflow working group look like? What will it include?

It will include a project summary, detailed project description, a timeline, a budget outlining how the funds will be used, and information about previous data.

What would happen if more than 2 projects are awesome and meet the funding criteria?

Then we only choose the 2 most compelling projects.

If we fund research projects and get part of the IP (after proposal amount is reached), why is Molecule doing the project management? Don’t we have more expertise on how it can be developed and have its goals reached?

Good question. Project management ≠ commercialisation expertise. Project management in this case refers to collecting the required information from researchers, negotiating IP, onboarding them to the platform, communicating between the researcher and the IPToken holders, reporting research results to IP Token holders, etc. The intention with this proposal was to primarily expand ValleyDAO’s biotech IP portfolio without causing any additional overheads.

If valuable IP is developed, ValleyDAO could support in the commercialisation aspect of the IP.

The expected outcomes state “Support and accelerate up to two high-potential climate biotechnology projects.”, however the proposal does not state anything about support and/or acceleration, it solely focuses on allocating funds.

See above.

Also, how will “tighter collaboration” will be fostered if all we do is provide funds?

Catalyst will open up the ability for more researchers to get funded (smaller projects), and also enable our community to directly allocate capital to those projects and become co-funders. This will bring our community closer to different researchers where collaboration can take place.

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