- The Cardano Foundation has partnered with Draper Dragon to launch an $80 million fund to expand adoption of the network over the next six years.
- The fund will focus on direct investment, global marketing, liquidity provision and educational support for high-potential startups building on the network.
The Cardano Foundation has partnered with global venture capital firm Draper Dragon and Draper University to launch a new fund aimed at expanding global adoption.
The Cardano Foundation supports @DraperDragon and @Draper_U in proposing an intelligence effort to create a USD 80 million fund focused on expanding Cardano adoption over at least six years and repaying the proceeds to the Cardano Treasury.
This proposal will contribute to the maturation of Cardano… pic.twitter.com/i4oLXVgWQ2
— Cardano Foundation (@Cardano_CF) January 13, 2026
This new fund is part of the proposed Cardano 2030 vision, mission, strategic framework and KPIs, which call for strengthening and expanding the protocol, creating strong on-chain demand, and creating non-vulnerable on-chain governance.
The new fund will focus on three pillars: direct investment, education support and growth capital. Under Investment, we will support startups with high potential to build on the Cardano network, such as through accelerators, while also providing access to exchanges and institutions.
The growth capital pillar drives global marketing and provides liquidity for builders. An in-house venture studio will also be established where developers can receive technical guidance.
Education remains important for attracting new talent, and the foundation plans to launch a mentorship and residency program for the most elite architects. Cardano is not the first attempt to attract developers. As we reported, Midnight Network launched Aliit Fellowship and welcomed its first group of developers and founders last month.
DDC Fund aims to expand Cardano network
This initiative will be known as the Cardano x Draper Dragon Ecosystem Fund (DDC Fund). The goal is to drive returns to the network’s treasury while increasing Total Value Lock (TVL) and making the entire ecosystem self-sustaining. Ultimately, the partners envision the Treasury becoming an active growth engine rather than a passive reserve fund.
Draper Dragon will be responsible for managing the fund. The VC firm is part of the broader Draper Venture Network, which unites dozens of funds associated with Silicon Valley icon Tim Draper. The San Francisco-based firm invests in early-stage technology companies and was an early backer of Coinbase, eToro, and Ledger.
Both parties believe that this fund can increase the network’s on-chain revenue and the stablecoin’s market capitalization. The goal is to increase TVL from the current $300 million to $3 billion. It also aims to increase the number of projects targeting strategic sectors such as real-world asset tokenization and institutional DeFi.
The Foundation summarized it as follows:
As TVL increases and the ecosystem grows, development activity should increase and more RWA should be tokenized on Cardano. We expect to see a new generation of builders focused on blockchain scaling. Overall, this should lead to more active protocols, stable application-level revenue, and increased ecosystem visibility.
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