The Avalanche Foundation Announces Second Cohort for Retro9000
The Avalanche Foundation Announces Second Cohort for Retro9000
Aug 27, 2025 / By Avalanche Foundation / 7 Minute Read
Meet the second wave of builders rewarded through Retro9000 for launching Avalanche Layer 1s (L1s) or developer tooling on mainnet.
As part of its continued commitment to empower the Avalanche community and the developers building it, the Avalanche Foundation is proud to announce the second cohort of Retro9000 grantees, selected from a competitive pool of builders innovating across the Avalanche ecosystem.
Retro9000 is a retroactive grant program backed by a $40 million pool, designed to reward projects that are already delivering impact. It’s built to recognize developers who have already shipped Avalanche L1s and foundational infrastructure on mainnet, driving Avalanche forward.
Avalanche L1s and Infrastructure Tooling - Continuous Round
The first round of Retro9000 is tied to ‘Avalanche L1s and Infrastructure Tooling’, an ongoing round designed to encourage experimentation, deployment, and iteration of Avalanche L1s and developer tooling from testnet to mainnet. Here’s a recap on eligibility:
Avalanche Layer 1 blockchain
Projects must be building a new, innovative L1 that leverages Avalanche’s advanced composability and interoperability. While permissioned L1s are eligible for funding once they deploy on mainnet, the majority of funding will be allocated to permissionless L1s.
Developer tooling
Tooling projects must support Avalanche L1 builders — for example, deployment tools, explorers, testing frameworks, validator dashboards, and more. Preference will be given to tools that integrate Avalanche-native protocols like ICM and ICTT. Tooling must be open-source, publicly usable, and accompanied by documentation.
Evaluation
Projects are evaluated based on development progress, ecosystem relevance, technical merit, and community engagement. On-chain mainnet metrics—such as total transactions, active addresses, validators, total value locked (TVL), internet computer messages (ICM), and monthly active users (MAUs) - are strongly considered where applicable.
Please note that prior support received from the Avalanche Foundation—such as through the infraBUIDL( ), infraBUIDL(AI) programs, Blizzard Fund, Codebase, Innovation House, or investment or funding initiatives from Ava Labs - will be considered when determining both grant awards and grant size.
Projects that have already received grants from Retro9000 may also be considered for additional retroactive funding if they demonstrate significant progress in growth or development milestones. These teams will be contacted to complete an update form.
To remain eligible, teams must post regular updates to their application dashboard, demonstrating the completion of product and growth milestones. Community votes are considered as part of the evaluation, alongside internal review by the Avalanche Foundation.
Snapshot Complete: July 2025
The second program snapshot was completed on July 15th, 2025. To qualify, projects had to meet all of the following criteria:
Be approved for a Retro9000 program and appear on the Discover Projects page.
Be marked as “Currently Live” on mainnet on their Retro9000 page.
Have received votes on the Retro9000 site.
Be directly related to Avalanche L1s (either an L1 itself or related tooling).
Each submission was reviewed by the Retro9000 committee using a structured decision matrix that considered technical contributions, usage, alignment with Avalanche L1s, community vote performance, and overall potential for ecosystem impact.
Introducing the Second Cohort of Retro9000 Grantees
We are pleased to announce the second cohort of 8 Retro9000 grantees, collectively awarded over $250,000 in retroactive funding.
These projects have been recognized for shipping impactful Avalanche L1s and infrastructure tooling already live on mainnet:
Artery Chain, CodeNekt, Tixbase, zeroone, NUMINE, Letsbuyhealthcare, Bango and Quboid.
Grant distributions are subject to the completion of KYB & KYC. Each project has been contacted by the Avalanche Foundation to coordinate next steps.
Returning Grantees Making Significant Improvements
Retro9000 is designed not just to reward builders once, but to continually support projects that keep delivering impact. Cohort 1 grantees that show measurable progress remain eligible for additional funding in future snapshots, reinforcing the program’s commitment to long-term builder success.
In this round, we are proud to recognize Artery Chain and CodeNekt for their continued development since receiving their initial Retro9000 grants.
Artery Chain
Since their first Retro9000 grant, Artery Chain has matured into a high-activity Avalanche L1 tailored for immersive, AI-native Web3 gaming. The team merged the Memoria and Animalia ecosystems, launched new game modules and lottery tools, and introduced gasless transactions to simplify onboarding.
Expanded ecosystem with Memoria, Animalia, Degit, and interoperable NFT utility
AI-powered NPCs, dynamic quests, and unified $ARTERY token economy
100K+ token holders, 11K+ daily active users, and 830K+ transactions in the first 5 weeks
CodeNekt
CodeNekt continues building a blockchain for vehicle identity and lifecycle management on Avalanche. Since their first grant, the team deployed its CDK contracts on C-Chain and prepared for an August launch.
Native token deployed on Avalanche C-Chain
Vehicle NFT smart contracts live on mainnet, with minting already underway
Partnership with Euromaster, a leading European workshop network
Integrated new data partners to bring live vehicle data onchain
We will continue to monitor the progress of all participating projects and review for significant improvements during the next snapshot.
Refer Projects & Earn Rewards
Retro9000 is designed to empower the Avalanche community to help grow the ecosystem by referring strong projects, with up to $2m allocated for referral rewards. In the most recent round, over $15,000 in AVAX was distributed across 40 community referrers.
Here’s how the referral program works:
Earn $100 in AVAX when a referred project is accepted into the Retro9000 program.
Earn between $500 and $10,000 in AVAX if the referred project is awarded a grant.
In the first snapshot, 19 projects received funding, but only 5 of them were referred by the community—representing nearly $50,000 in referral rewards that went unclaimed.
To start referring:
Connect your wallet: retro9000.avax.network
Submit your contact details
Receive your referral code and link
Share with builders
Retro9000 values quality over quantity: the more impactful your referral, the higher your reward.
New Round On The Horizon
The current round continues to focus on scaling Avalanche L1s and strengthening core infrastructure. These areas remain essential to Avalanche’s long-term growth.
Details of the next Retro9000 round will be shared soon, continuing the program’s focus on rewarding builders who are driving measurable onchain impact.
A new round will provide new opportunities for community voting and participation.
Stay tuned for upcoming announcements and prepare to take part in the next phase of Retro9000 funding.
Upcoming Snapshot: October 2025
If your project wasn’t selected in this snapshot, don’t worry — Retro9000 is an ongoing program with recurring quarterly snapshots. The next one takes place on Tuesday, October 14, 2025 at 12:00 UTC.
Build publicly, get voted on by the community, ship to mainnet, and get rewarded.
Disclaimer
Participation in Retro9000 does not guarantee funding. All evaluations, funding decisions, and eligibility determinations are made at the sole discretion of the Avalanche Foundation. This program is designed to support ecosystem development and does not constitute an offer or solicitation for investment.
About Avalanche Blockchain Network
Avalanche is a high-performance blockchain platform designed for builders who need to scale. Engineered with a revolutionary three-part Layer 1 (L1) architecture, Avalanche is anchored by its Avalanche Consensus Mechanism, ensuring near-instant finality for transactions. The platform also features an open-source Layer 0 (L0) framework, enabling the seamless creation of interoperable Layer 1 blockchains with high throughput on both public and private networks.
Supported by a global community of developers and validators, Avalanche offers a fast, low-cost environment for building the next generation of decentralized applications (dApps). With its unique blend of speed, flexibility, and scalability, Avalanche is the preferred choice for innovators pushing the boundaries of blockchain technology.
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About the Avalanche Foundation
The Avalanche Foundation is a non-profit entity that fosters the advancement and growth of the Avalanche platform for the world. The Foundation offers development programs for developers, entrepreneurs, and users to help turbocharge the advancement of the Avalanche ecosystem.
