Solana Foundation India Grants

About The Grant

Superteam India now supports Solana Foundation Grants. These are grants designed for Indian developers, creators, and founders who are working in the Solana Ecosystem and accelerating the adoption of public blockchains in India (and globally from India).

In 2025, nine Superteam Member projects from India secured over $12 million in venture funding. There has never been a better time to go founder mode on Solana, but the bar for having a successful project is also higher than it has ever been. This grant program is designed to help individuals who want to take it even higher. If you are someone with a unique insight, a concrete project, a working prototype, early traction/interest, and outstanding proof of work, you are welcome to apply for a grant of up to $10,000 to take your startup from 0 to 1 and 1 to 10.

Who we’re Looking For:

• Builders, founders, and Founder-adjacent individuals who have:
• A working prototype, live product, or shipped experiments;
• Or a specific, insight‑driven idea that shows deep domain knowledge
• Folks who have raised the bar before even applying here — we are in the golden age of development and research, which has made going from 0 to 1 with an MVP faster and easier than ever before. Hence, a team with deep user research, product feedback (at least with an MVP), and actionable market insights is, in most cases, the benchmark for a good application.
• Folks with outstanding proof-of-work. Bounties won/participated in, hackathon submissions, open‑source contributions, community involvement, or any visible track record of you and your team spending productive time in the Solana ecosystem. 

General Heuristics to follow:

• Proof-of-Work > Potential
• Active Links > Concepts/Ideas
• Product Feedback > Market Thesis
• Unique actionable insights > Opinions from X
• Working Product > MVP >>> PRDs > Pitch Decks

Who we’re not Looking For:

This Grant program is designed to fuel a startup/project that you are already committed to and working on. Applications that only have a good idea, a basic landing page, or a pitch deck without working links/active users are not an ideal fit.

We are also specifically looking for folks who have already built an extremely impressive proof-of-work (inside or outside the Solana ecosystem) and are looking to go founder mode with a project with Product-Founder Fit.

If this is not you (yet), here are other links you should check out:

• If you’re new to the ecosystem, check out Bounties and Projects on Superteam Earn and start building your proof of work.
• If you’re looking to join a team building in the Solana Ecosystem, check out Superteam Talent and the Solana Job Board.
• If you already have a startup with a solid team looking to raise venture capital, check out the upcoming Colosseum Hackathon, Alliance, and the Solana Incubator.

Areas of focus:

While you can apply with any type of project, here are some themes for you:

1. Developer Tooling: How do we make the Solana Development Ecosystem better? Developers are the lifeblood of this community, and you are invited to create apps, tools, programs, and hacks that make it easier and faster for them to build on the network.
2. Consumer Apps: Solana is the consumer chain. We are looking for the next breakout app that is easy to use, natively powered by Solana, and brings internet capital markets to net new users at scale — we would love for you to test the network, if you can.
3. Payments/Stablecoins: It is clear from developments in 2025 that stablecoin rails will be at the foundation of the next generation of fintech companies. A lot of new opportunities to build for new use cases, cover existing gaps, enable internet-native payment/monetization via x402 and fintech catering to local markets (e.g., Credible — a stablecoin-powered remittance platform for banks, fintechs, etc., sending money in/out of India)
4. Tokenization & RWA: Tokenization of real-world assets (land, credit, real estate, etc.) is a big opportunity to unlock capital, access, and a ton of new use cases, especially in India. There is huge potential in bridging the gap between Internet Capital Markets and Indian Capital Markets, and enabling this alliance via your project.
5. Mobile: More than 150,000 Seeker Mobile Phones were sold last year at launch. It is obvious today that if you want to build a successful app on Solana that can go from 0 to 10K users & ideally help drive new user adoption, it has to be on mobile.
6. Research and Content: This grant is not just for founding devs and builders, but also for exceptional founding creators. If you’re someone who can produce and distribute quality content and deep research about the Solana ecosystem, apply here. You can choose what you would like to cover, including but not limited to:
• Products: DeFi, Consumer, RWA, Gaming, AI, Stablecoins, etc.
• Global policy: Stablecoin regulation, Free zones, etc.
• Technical research: Compression, Local fee markets, Light clients, etc
• India and Internet Capital Markets: Local opportunities, ecosystem, developments, etc.
• Ecosystem: Current and future landscape, opportunities, gaps, etc.

💡 The reviewing team receives tens of applications every week, and may not have the time to give detailed feedback on every application. Please keep that in mind before you apply.

⚙️ How it Works

1. Submit the application form on Superteam Earn.
2. The Foundation does its best to respond within 30 days.
3. If approved, you'll receive an email notification for onboarding and further steps. Note that KYC on Earn is mandatory to receive your grant.
4. Update the community once a week on your progress.
5. As you achieve your self-described milestones, receive the rest of your funding.
6. Submit finished work for feedback, review, and distribution.

🤝 Guidelines

1. Be Concise: Being clear and concise is always helpful.
2. Build what the ecosystem needs: We often see people on X (and elsewhere) saying things like "Solana needs X" or "Solana would be better if it had Y". Be the one who builds it.
3. Open Source: What makes decentralized applications so powerful is that they’re built on the premise of being open and composable. Therefore, this grant supports teams that intend to open source soon after deploying on Solana’s Mainnet Beta.

❓Frequently asked questions

• Who is eligible to apply for a Grant?
• Anyone based in India can apply. Superteam India members with high reputation scores will be given priority based on their submissions, plans, founder-product fit, and track record.

• How long will it take for you to hear back from us?
• We try our best to get you a decision within 30 days.

• What criteria will the panelists use to evaluate grants?
• We prefer projects that 1) yield results quickly and 2) are executable by the Proposing team.

• What conditions apply?
• The only condition is that you keep the community updated regularly as your project progresses.

• What is the philosophy behind this grant program?
• Proof of Work > Credentials. Anyone is welcome to apply for Instagrants, given they have enough Proof of Work to make the review committee believe the work will get done.
• Speed > Perfection. We want to give grants rapidly. Not perfectly. We trust people to get work done.
• Believers > Consensus. As long as a minimum quorum of the reviewing committee believes it's a good use of funds, we will fund it.

• Will I receive feedback on my proposal if it is rejected?
• Unfortunately, our sponsors do not have the ability to provide individualized feedback at this time.

🚁 Have a question that isn't answered here? Drop an email to in@superteam.fun for help.