Please describe your proposed solution.

This round of Catalyst does not have much money for the developer ecosystem (one of the primary things we build). To balance it out, we are asking for a loan w/ interest from Catalyst for this round.

Notably, we are asking for a 400K loan. The loan will be for 2 years with the following terms:

y1: grace period where no money has to be paid back

y2: paying back the loan month-by-month with an apr of 6% in USD terms

The Cardano treasury has no way at the moment to receive payments, but we have created a Catalyst proposal for this: https://github.com/cardano-foundation/CIPs/pull/269

Interestingly, the interest payments of this loan can be used by the Cardano treasury to, for example, fund grants of other companies which will help fund the continued growth of Cardano

Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.

dcSpark the company is itself the product in this proposal

What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?

1. It is possible dcSpark does not survive for the 2 years required to pay back the loan (of course we intend to survive and have many long-term commitments, but we have to be upfront about the risk)
2. There is no way currently to pay back the Cardano treasury. We have a CIP for this mentioned above. However, it's possible to have a temporary solution if such a system is not introduced in time.

Please provide a detailed plan, including timeline and key milestones for delivering your proposal.

The timeline of the loan is outlined above

Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

The loan will be used to pay the company costs & employees. The money to pay off the loan will most likely come from a mix of revenue from dcSpark products, future grants from companies/ecosystems and, in case this is insufficient, from the sale of dcSpark assets or ownership

Please provide details of the people who will work on the project.

The full dcSpark team (https://dcspark.io)

If you are funded, will you return to Catalyst in a later round for further funding? Please explain why / why not.

We may take loans from Catalyst in the future either for dcSpark or for other related projects/products, or make similar proposals such as the sale of company equity to the Cardano treasury. We do not, however, intend to pay back this loan with another loan (since that is not sustainable)

Please describe what you will measure to track your project's progress, and how will you measure these?

Successful payment of the loan

What does success for this project look like?

Successfully paying back the loan plus interest which will help other projects grow Cardano with the additional interest funding that Cardano would not otherwise have

Please provide information on whether this proposal is a continuation of a previously funded project in Catalyst or an entirely new one.

No