Open Call for NEAR Accelerator Service Partners

The NEAR blockchain is an open-source, decentralized blockchain protocol that is designed to be scalable, developer-friendly, and able to support a wide range of decentralized applications (dApps) and smart contracts. NEAR has built the Blockchain Operating System (BOS), a Web3 stack to integrate experiences from across the Open Web and streamline the discovery and onboarding experience for users and developers alike.

NEAR Foundation has committed over $90M in capital to ecosystem growth, and the NEAR ecosystem grew from 0 to over 1,000 teams. One of the central lessons learned during this time is that founding teams need a host of contributors — beyond investment — in order to be successful. 

Partner with NEAR Foundation for Accelerator program

NEAR Foundation recently announced Updates to Decentralized Funding, Development DAO, and the Accelerator, and released an Open Call for NEAR Accelerator Partners. To further assist founders and startups, the NEAR Foundation is looking to partner with existing products, experts, and services to support teams participating in NEAR Accelerator programs in a variety of different functions:

• Legal Partner RFP — Comprehensive legal and regulatory guidance for cryptocurrency, web3, and general business matters such as intellectual property, taxation, governance, regulatory rulings, outsourcing, cross-border transactions, and consumer/data protection. Expertise in Anti-Money Laundering/Know Your Customer (AML/KYC) compliance and overall startup support from formation to governance.
• Marketing Partner RFP — Full-service marketing support for product engagement and go-to-market strategy execution, including digital marketing, branding, creative concept development, campaign planning, and design.
• Finance Partner RFP — Comprehensive financial services tailored to web3 startups, including accounting, bookkeeping, tax services, and general financial advisory.
• Talent / Recruiting Partner RFP — Specialized recruiting and talent acquisition services to help accelerator teams attract top-tier talent essential for building successful and sustainable businesses.
• Technical Partner RFP — Robust infrastructure and development tools designed to expedite technical and product development, encompassing web3 services, audit services, traditional cloud services as well as UX/UI services.
• Product Partner RFP — Expert guidance in product-market fit, go-to-market strategy, product vision and roadmap development, and tokenomics evaluation for web3 startups.
• PR / Comm Partner RFP — Strategic public relations and communications services aimed at boosting product engagement and supporting go-to-market strategies, covering PR campaigns, social media, communications, and community outreach.

NEAR Foundation will offer service credits to teams participating in the accelerator program to use partner services to help them accomplish their vision. The ultimate goal is for founding teams to create great products and run successful fundraising campaigns, while also increasing revenue and market share for other stakeholders interacting with the product such as our service partners. NEAR Foundation commits to providing access to NEAR ecosystem teams for the selected service partner(s) as “preferred partners.” This will mean that the selected partner(s) are vetted and approved by the NEAR Foundation, and should lead to an increase in the number of projects that are interested in using the partner(s)’ product / services. 

Important dates for NEAR accelerator service partners

We will be assessing proposals based on the requirements outlined in each of the function-specific service partner open calls. Service partners are expected to submit their proposals by Apr 23, 2023. The NEAR Foundation review team will be conducting interviews with selected candidates between May 13-17. The review team will shortlist the service partners between May 20-23 and will communicate further with the selected parties. Final approval will be provided by the NEAR Foundation Counsel.