The Interchain Foundation (ICF) is a Swiss non-profit foundation based in Zug, Switzerland. It was established in 2017 alongside the Cosmos Network's fundraiser, which raised approximately $17.3 million in ATOM token pre-sales. The ICF's mandate is to support open-source development of the Cosmos ecosystem – the network of interoperable blockchains anchored by the Cosmos Hub. Unlike conventional venture funds, the ICF does not take equity stakes. It operates as a grant-making institution, allocating capital to teams building on or for the Cosmos stack: the Cosmos SDK, the CometBFT consensus engine (formerly Tendermint BFT), and the Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol.
The foundation's treasury is denominated in ATOM, Bitcoin, and other digital assets, accumulated from the 2017 fundraiser and subsequent protocol inflation. Exact current AUM figures are not publicly disclosed on a regular basis, though community members have periodically requested greater transparency. In 2022, the Cosmos community raised pointed criticism about the ICF's opacity regarding spending, grant recipients, and treasury management. The ICF subsequently published partial disclosures of grant activity. Public information about the exact current treasury size remains limited.
Notable investments and grants
The ICF has funded or co-funded a range of teams that became significant in the broader blockchain ecosystem:
- Informal Systems – spun out of the original Tendermint Inc team, now the primary maintainer of CometBFT consensus and IBC relayer software
- Osmosis Labs – developers of Osmosis, the largest decentralized exchange in the Cosmos ecosystem by volume
- Agoric – smart contract platform using JavaScript and the Cosmos SDK, focused on secure, composable DeFi primitives
- Ignite (formerly Tendermint Inc) – the original commercial entity behind Cosmos SDK scaffolding tooling, since restructured
- Celestia Labs – modular data availability network that traces its technical roots to research funded in part through the Cosmos grant ecosystem
- Interop Labs / Axelar – cross-chain messaging infrastructure compatible with IBC
The ICF does not publish a comprehensive public portfolio list with deal sizes. The above reflects publicly disclosed or widely reported grant relationships.
Team
The ICF is governed by a board of directors and an executive team. Ethan Buchman, one of the co-founders of the Cosmos Network alongside Jae Kwon, has been a central technical figure in the ecosystem and has held advisory and board roles at the foundation. Arianne Flemming served as Managing Director and was a visible public representative during 2021–2023. The current composition of the executive team as of mid-2026 is not fully confirmed in public sources. Jae Kwon departed the day-to-day Cosmos leadership to focus on a separate project, Gno.land, though he retains a presence in the broader ecosystem.
Recent activity
From 2024 onward, the ICF has concentrated grants on IBC protocol upgrades, Cosmos Hub roadmap execution (including Interchain Security, also called Replicated Security), and developer tooling. Interchain Security allows smaller chains to lease validator security from the Cosmos Hub – a structural shift the ICF backed with significant grant funding. The ICF also supported work on the ibc-go implementation maintained by Informal Systems and Strangelove Ventures.
The ATOM token's price performance has been weak relative to the broader market since its 2021 highs, which has pressured the foundation's treasury value and prompted ongoing community debate about capital allocation priorities. The ICF's dual role – as both a grant-maker and a de facto steward of a major public blockchain – creates governance tensions that the foundation has not fully resolved. Retail investors tracking ATOM as a proxy for ICF-backed portfolio performance have seen minimal returns over the 2022–2025 cycle (retail ROI near breakeven or negative in real terms).
The ICF remains one of the few blockchain foundations with a long operational track record, having stewarded infrastructure now used by over 50 IBC-connected chains. Its influence on the modular blockchain thesis – later popularized by Celestia and others – is significant, even if financial returns to token holders have lagged expectations set during the 2021 bull market. Further detail on current grant programs is available via the Interchain Foundation website.