Hi Community,
This post is to advise that the Maple DAO last week approved a grant of $803,000 USDC to Maple Labs Pty Ltd (0x94F98416CA0DC0310Bcaeda0e16903e19307539F) for the further software development of the Maple Protocol and growth and business development services.
The grant was submitted by Maple Labs and approved by the 4 of 6 Maple DAO multi-sig members.
Overview of the Proposal
The $803k grant request was for software development, marketing and advisory services for the Maple protocol. The intention of this grant is to provide sufficient funding for the ongoing development up to 30 September 2021.
Key budget items:
- Salaries and Wages: This is the largest line item, the Maple team currently comprises 17 people with open roles for 3 new senior hires. This is expected to cost $550-600k for the quarter.
- Legal & Tax Fees: budgeting $75k for compliance and regulatory analysis.
- Marketing & Design: budgeting $40k for ongoing PR agency costs and other marketing initiatives to build brand awareness.
- Smart Contract Audit Fees: budgeting $40k for audit expenses for minor and major code upgrades. Maple has entered a retainer agreement with a tier 1 audit firm to ensure timely access to top quality security audits.
- Gas Fees, Technology Services and Miscellaneous: budgeting $75k. Gas fees related to the deployment of new contracts can cost thousands of dollars. The Technology subscriptions currently total a run rate of $10k-15k per month.
Variance to Prior Quarter’s Budget
The previous grant was $560k in April to cover launch costs and expenses to 30 June. Of that, $536k was spent. With savings on legal bills and recruitment costs were partially offset by higher than expected wage costs as the team expanded by 4 members.