The evidence behind the thesis.
Funder due diligence asks four questions: does anything exist yet, who vouches for it, how is it governed, and where does the money come from. Here are the answers — with sources, and with the gaps named honestly.
gold ⟨…⟩ = confirm the exact figure before publishing. Every claim below should resolve to a source or a named person.
What already exists
Weave is not a whitepaper looking for its first dollar. The baseline work is done and self-funded: a year of direct conversation with frontline builders, eleven in-depth project interviews, a mapped integration pipeline, and a maturing anchor protocol.
Who vouches for it
Credibility here is borrowed from a 24-year lineage in digital identity, not asserted. The people and institutions already in the room:
Biggest open item. The strongest proof you don't yet show publicly is testimony — a named quote from one interviewed project and one values-aligned funder. Two sentences each converts more skeptics than any diagram. Secure consent, then add here.
How we're governed & what we won't do
Funders fund governance, not just talent. This block pre-empts the diligence questions rather than waiting for them.
What Weave commits to
- Protocols held as public goods / commons
- Philanthropic streams through a named fiscal sponsor
- Investment capital ring-fenced in a separate entity with its own fiduciaries
- Interoperability required as a funding condition
- Personhood without surveillance or wallets
What Weave won't do
- Enclose the protocols as private property
- Take extractive returns or demand moats
- Force builders into surveillance business models
- Route capital through extractive reporting
- Let one company's lock-in define the value
Where the money sits. Kevin Triplett self-funded the baseline — real skin in the game before any outside ask. Philanthropic streams A–C flow through a fiscal sponsor. Stream D — the Canal Funds — is aligned, non-extractive investment capital (capped returns, no moats): a distinct pool from the philanthropic side, thesis-aligned but not Weave-controlled. It is a capital mechanism, not a legal wrapper around Weave.
Honest risk register
The fastest way to lose a serious funder is to pretend there are no risks. The real ones, and how they're managed:
Cohort doesn't integrate
Mitigation: Stream B contracts gate final payment on passing shared interop tests — convergence is contractual, not hoped for.
Anchor protocol stalls
Mitigation: FPP already has independent momentum and standards engagement; Weave coordinates rather than owns it, so no single point of failure. Confirm current standards status.
"Isn't someone already doing this?"
Ecological-credit platforms, quadratic funding, and community-coordination networks each solve one piece on top of a missing trust layer. None builds personhood-without-wallets + community vouching + groups-as-first-class + the convergence requirement together. Full comparison →
Seen the evidence? Here's the ask.
The streams, the numbers, and Year 1 — on one page.
Read the executive brief →