DwellFi Grant Proposal

Hello, my name is satoriape :monkey_face: and I work in biz dev at DwellFi. Below please find our draft grant proposal for integration of the Ajna protocol into the DwellFi platform to create the ability to permissionlessly borrow against private fund positions (venture capital, real estate, private equity, hedge funds, etc.)


DwellFi

Request

Receiving Address: 0x1C30B4A46704c9341f8Fb67b812aCBDA19B131ad
AJNA Amount: 1,500,000

Applicant and Team Information

Applicant Name: DwellFi
Email: kumar@dwell.fi

About you and/or the team: DwellFi is a SaaS ai/tokenization platform focused on modernizing private fund administration. Built by a 15-person veteran team from Punchh, Citadel, Stanford PHD prior running AI/ML at Nike

Additional Links: https://dwell.fi

Project Information

1. What is it? The grant proposal will fund the integration (UI/support/maintenance/marketing) of the Ajna Finance protocol into the DwellFi platform. It will also fund development of an ERC-1155 wrapper for use of dNFTs with the Ajna protocol.

2. What problem is being solved, how? The creation of borrowing/lending markets against private fund positions (venture capital, real estate, private equity, hedge funds, etc.). DwellFi tokenizes these funds as security token offerings (STOs) in the form of dynamic NFTs. DwellFi provides back-end efficiencies to fund administrators by utilizing artificial intelligence to parse through the data. Once the net asset values are calculated in a more efficient and frequent manner, the STO’d products can then be borrowed against on-chain.

3. How will this project be a source of growth or success for Ajna? Please include a step-by-step summary of how you imagine the completed project will affect Ajna. Real world assets (RWAs) such as STOs can’t really be brought on-chain in a fully permissionless fashion. Due to the regulatory environment, and back-end/real world database tokenization, DwellFi is permissioned platform. However, we believe in being as decentralized as possible. We would like the ability to offer permissionless borrowing on these products through Ajna Finance. The borrowing/lending markets on these products do not really exist yet. Our mission is to drive the space forward. We think that a relationship between DwellFi and Ajna would be symbiotic, and that the Dwellfi platform will end up driving TVL to the AJNA protocol over the long-term.

4. What is/are the objective(s)? To offer permissionless borrowing/lending on private fund positions. We plan to sleekly integrate the Ajna protocol into the DwellFi platform to give investors a simple and permissionless way to borrow against their private fund positions.

5. What is/are the deliverable(s)? The grant will fund a front-end integration into the Dwellfi platform as well as fund build of an ERC-1155 wrapper for use of dNFTs with Ajna protocol. Time-frame would be roughly 2 months (1-2 devs).

6. What is the timeline for completing the deliverables? The DwellFi platform has already been built. The timeframe for the Ajna protocol integration would be Q3 2024.

7. What level of support do you anticipate needing through the duration of the project? We will create an ERC-1155 wrapper for utilizing dNFTS with the Ajna protocol, as well as integration into Dwellfi’s front-end UI. We don’t expect to receive much support on the build, but it might save some costs if there are devs (Anja/MOM devs?) already working on an ERC1155 wrapper.

8. How often will progress reports be published to the forum? We will plan to publish progress reports on at least a Monthly basis.

9. What are the estimated costs associated with the full completion of this project? We are asking for 1,500,000 AJNA to cover the costs of the integration and ERC1155 wrapper with residual funds going toward marketing, support, and maintenance.

10. If applicable, How will the project be maintained after completion of the grant? We will aim to provide maintenance, support, and marketing for the Ajna partnership over the long-term.

Additional Information

11. How will you handle a delay in your project timeline? We would update the community regarding any delays in a timely manner. We plan to keep the community updated on the Ajna integration and full launch timeline through our social media channels.

12. How will you handle a scenario where the project can’t be completed due to insufficient funding or other factors? We would update the community in a timely manner. DwellFi is currently closing a seed round and we don’t expect this to be an issue. If the Ajna integration happens to be insufficiently funded, it is possible that we might ask for follow-on funding in a future epoch to cover costs. If for some reason we find out the project cannot be completed correctly, we will send the tokens back immediately.

13. How will you handle a scenario where the project is completed, but significantly under-budget? We would use any residual funds for marketing, support, and maintenance. If the residual funds are excessive, we will most likely offer them as a rewards program on our platform.

I am inclined to vote no.

Initial Thoughts

  • DwellFi is very hard to do due diligence on, not much information online. Unclear how long the company has been in operation, unclear what stage of the roadmap you are on, no information on offerings or users, minimal info about the team (was able to find some stuff on LinkedIn), no access or evidence of a working platform.
  • I currently have 0 trust in the team making the proposal because they are so new and unconnected to the industry. Nobody I know follows or knows about them.
  • My assessment is that it’s not worth making the gamble given the above.
  • Before considering a grant approval I would like for the developer of the 1155 wrapper to comment on this thread and elaborate on the time and cost required. If it’s someone from the MOM team as you mention, please have them comment here. From my understanding, despite posting the proposal you do not have a commitment from them on participating in this endeavor.

Questions

  1. Why doesn’t the developer of the 1155 wrapper apply for this grant themselves?
  2. Where is DwellFi in its product? How long ago was it launched? Are there existing STO tokens now? Do you have any technical documentation you could share?

Other

The end of the screening stage is the 21st, the beginning was back in early January.

2 Likes

Hi David,

DwellFi was started in 2021 by Kumar Ujjwal and Deepak Sheoran. The focus back then was on tokenizing real-estate (hence the name and logo). The project pivoted to tokenizing private funds and utilizing the ai tool for back-end administration about a year later. We are based in Palo Alto, CA, but are a distributed project with 15 team members. The platform is complete, live, and currently has STOs on it now (5 funds with 450 LPs $150M AUM)

Here is a recent news link: DwellFi Announces Strategic Partnership with Shinhan Securities in Developing Security Token Offering (STO) Products

To clarify, our devs would build the ERC1155 wrapper and integrate Ajna into our front-end. The token amount requested should cover what we need. I mentioned working with the Ajna/MOM devs in the initial post because we heard that there might be others already working on an ERC1155 wrapper, and if there could be a chance for us to collaborate to cut costs…

I will follow-up with more technical documentation. We have a data room and product demos, etc…

Best regards,
Joe Rahn
DwellFi Biz Dev

1 Like

If anyone would like to have access to the data room and product demos, we encourage you to please book a call with us through our website at:

DwellFi – {DECISION @ NOW}

We do not really have a WP, github or non-confidential technically docs that we share publicly. We are building on blockchain rails (celo/polygon/evm), but we’re not a full crypto project with plans for a token atm. We are a hybrid business in a sense… one-part tradfi/fintech/saas, one-part ai, one-part blockchain/tokenization. However, over the next 30 days or so, we will have product demonstrations live on a new website.

More information and podcasts with our CEO Kumar Ujjwal can be found on the alt funds network:

Alt Funds Network - YouTube

I agree with David, no technical documentation, Are you deployed as a solution ? can you prove it ?

2 Likes

Hi Adam, yes we are deployed. The platform is live but permissioned. If you’d like to book a call, we can give you access to take a look.

We have 5 funds, 450 LPs, and $150MM in AUM on the platform atm.

Here is a section of an old whitepaper that goes over some of the technical aspects however, it is very outdated and not pertinent to the STO/private fund tokenization that we’re working on now.