Rules & Guidelines

Deep Funding (DF) is a grant program by SingularityNET that empowers AI developers and innovators, distributing funds to community-selected projects to foster the development of new AI applications to be onboarded in the Foundation’s decentralized AI platform. These grants, which do not require repayment or shares, aim to shift control from a few large companies to a more open and democratic AI ecosystem.

The total award for Round 4 is $1,520,000 in AGIX.

The total award is split into 6 pools (categories):

• New Projects Pool: 1,000,000 USD
  • Max cap per proposal: 150,000 USD
• Ideation Pool: 75,000 USD
  • Max cap per proposal: 5,000 USD
• Marketing Initiatives Pool: 100,000 USD
  • Max cap per proposal: 20,000 USD
• Miscellaneous Pool: 150,000 USD
  • Max cap per proposal: No Max Cap
• Community Driven RFPs - Content Knowledge Graph: 120,000 USD
  • Max cap per proposal: No Max Cap
• RFP Design: 75,000 USD
  • Max cap per proposal: max 3 projects awarded.

1. Alignment with Mission: Proposals must support the growth of the decentralized AI platform and align with SingularityNET’s mission of developing a democratic, beneficial, and decentralized Artificial General Intelligence.
2. Pool-Specific Requirements: Proposals must also adhere to the specific requirements of the pool they are submitted to and must be placed in the correct pool to be considered eligible.
3. Ethical Standards: Proposers need to address how their projects handle ethical considerations, particularly for technologies that could have significant societal impacts, such as facial recognition. Proposals should outline measures to prevent misuse and promote beneficial outcomes.
4. Financial and Legal Compliance: All proposers must provide, if awarded, a Cardano network address for disbursements in AGIX (It can be changed at DF’s discretion), and must agree to the legal terms and conditions of the grant by signing an agreement before any funds are released.
5. Clear Project Details: Proposals should include a concise summary, the requested funding amount, a detailed description of the project, the team's qualifications, and a milestone plan with associated costs.
6. Community Feedback and Participation: Funded teams must maintain communication with DF staff and the community, participate in surveys, and meetings, and provide project updates to ensure transparency and engagement.
7. Self-Sufficiency in Deployment: Teams must independently execute project milestones without direct support from SingularityNET or Deep Funding personnel unless otherwise agreed.

The updated submission portal enforces strict guidelines including mandatory fields and character limits to encourage succinctness.

Community members associated with the Deep Funding Circles (Review Circle) may contact proposers through messages to provide eligibility feedback based on the requirements (general and pool specific), intended as a courtesy.

Designed to populate the decentralized AI platform by introducing innovative AI services that are aligned with SingularityNET’s mission of creating a democratic, decentralized, and beneficial AI ecosystem. Here are the key aspects of the New Projects pool:

• Purpose: To invigorate the platform with fresh and innovative AI services that can provide new functionalities or improve existing capabilities.
• Eligibility:
  • Projects must involve the publication of at least one AI service that is not already available on the platform.
  • Alternatively, projects can enhance the platform by utilizing one or more existing services in novel ways that demonstrate significant advancements or integrations.
  • Proposals should detail the technical aspects of deployment plans, including early development of AI services, in the first third of the project.
• Additional Requirements:
  • There is a mandated milestone specifically for Hosting/API calls. More info in the submission form.

Designed to support the preliminary stages of AI project development. This pool serves as a springboard for refining ideas and preparing them for more substantial funding rounds in the New Projects pool. Here are the key features of the Ideation Pool:

• Purpose: To assist teams in developing their initial AI concepts into viable project proposals that are ready for more advanced stages of development and funding.
• Benefits:
  • Visibility and Feedback: Proposers receive valuable community feedback.
  • Understanding Success Potential: A clearer perspective on the viability and potential impact of their idea.
  • Seed Funding: Offers preliminary funding to help proposers develop a comprehensive proposal.
  • Networking: Helps proposers connect with skilled individuals.
• Eligibility and Expectations:
  • Projects must aim to evolve into a submission for the "New Projects" pool in subsequent funding rounds.
  • Submissions must result in tangible deliverables such as a detailed project backlog, technical architecture, a clickable prototype, and preliminary market research.
  • The projects should align with the conditions and objectives of the New Projects pool, demonstrating a clear pathway to publishing or utilizing an AI service on the platform.

Designed to enhance the visibility and education of the platform among AI developers, and AI consumers, and to foster a Community of Builders. This pool supports efforts that increase exposure and user engagement on the platform.

• Purpose: To expand the Deep Funding ecosystem by increasing community engagement, attracting new users, and supporting ongoing community projects that align with SingularityNET's goals of creating a democratic and decentralized AI landscape.
• Outcome-Based Funding: Payment is contingent upon achieving specific, measurable outcomes as outlined in the proposal, ensuring accountability and effectiveness of the marketing efforts.

Additional Review by Marketing Circle: The Marketing Circle will conduct Expert Reviews (explained further below) on marketing-related proposals. This ensures that all marketing submissions are rigorously assessed for alignment with the overarching marketing strategy, enhancing their potential impact and feasibility before moving to the voting phase.

Only open for innovative projects that don't fit neatly into the specific categories of other funding pools. This flexibility encourages a broad range of creative ideas that might otherwise be overlooked but have the potential to significantly benefit the SingularityNET ecosystem.

• Purpose: To accommodate diverse and unconventional AI projects that advance SingularityNET's mission but do not align precisely with the predefined criteria of other pools.
• Adherence to General Rules: Despite its flexibility, proposals in this pool must still adhere to the general goals, rules, and ethical standards of the Deep Funding program to ensure consistency and integrity across all initiatives.

Designed to enable development teams to submit a proposal to a predefined specification, called Request for Proposal (RFP). You can select an RFP and create a proposal for that RFP. 

• • Purpose:  RFPs offer a targeted way to define desired project proposals. By making RFPs we are -to some extent- separating the definition process from the development process. 

• Important: 

• •  Each RFP has very specific requirements and each proposal has to comply with all 'must have' requirements of the RFP. 
  •  The DF team will filter out proposals that do not comply with these requirements and, reserves the right to subjectively reject proposals/teams that offer low confidence in their capability to deliver.

Before preparing a proposal, ensure that you have carefully read the full text and conditions of the RFP. You can find all active RFPs at https://deepfunding.ai/all-rfps

Designed to support teams that want to develop a high-quality specification document (Request For Proposal - RFP) for a desired solution that will allow any development team (including the team that created the specification) to submit a realistic proposal. 

• Purpose: Enable the community to select the most desired solution ideas and support the development of a high-quality RFP. 
• Restriction: This pool enables the community to select a MAX of *3* proposals.

Awarded teams will get funded to create an RFP according to the template provided by DF. After completion, the DF team will allocate a maximum budget and the RFP will be published on the DF website and opened for proposals from development teams.

Eligibility Review Group

Not all proposals may progress to the voting phase if they do not meet the minimum eligibility criteria. This assessment and decision will be conducted by the community-formed Review Circle during the Review Period.

Community Expert Group

Another important group acting during the Review Period, the Community Expert—comprising top contributors and awarded teams’ representatives from previous rounds—will subjectively assess the quality of each eligible proposal. Their goal is to create a comprehensive report highlighting the top proposals, which will be shared with voters to inform their decisions.

The process includes reviewing 10-20 proposals and discussing and rating the best ones in a group session along with 2 or 3 other experts and it will be compensated with a fixed award of $200,- in AGIX/ASI.

You can show your interest in participating in this group by answering this form here.

Voting

• Projects need a minimum average grade of 6.5;
• At least 1% of total votes cast;
• The project must fit within its pool's remaining budget after higher-voted proposals are funded.
• About voting:
  • Voting is done on SingularityNET’s Voting Portal.
  • Uses the square root of each wallet's token balance in a given moment to compute votes (Quadratic Voting).
  • Additional voting weight to wallets with high reputation scores, provided they are linked to the participant’s profile via the wallet linking tool ID.

Rewards will be allocated based on a mix of algorithmic and manual assessments by the DF community-formed Review Circle, focusing on the quantity and quality of comments that improve proposals via the “Reviews & Rating” on Open Proposals:

• Top contributors will each receive 100 AGIX/ASI and will be invited to become part of our Expert Reviewers group. 
• The top 10 contributors will receive caps featuring Deep Funding art.*
• The top 5 contributors will also receive Deep Funding art hoodies.*

*Availability of physical goods is contingent on logistics and delivery services in the contributor's region.

Agreement

The legal document that must be signed by both parties: Template.

Communication Channel

Team leads have to join Mattermost as this is the official channel where DF provides updates, announcements, and direct communication.

Milestone Payment 

Disbursements will be made per milestone and only after the team’s delivered outcome is approved by the Review Circle, following the process specified here and the Circle instructions.

Minimum Exchange Rate

To protect the DF treasury from extreme, temporary downward volatility there is a minimum AGIX-USD exchange rate of 0,08 USD, where the payments will be held.