Economico for Grant-funded teams
Grant funding and earned revenue, kept separate
Track foundation grants, stablecoin tranches, and paid work separately, with books your funders can trust. Run by your AI agent.
A 50,000 USDC tranche lands on Base, and your agent knows exactly where it goes
The foundation releases your milestone. USDC hits the wallet. Now the question the tranche can't answer itself: is this grant money or earned money? Those aren't the same thing, and funders expect the split kept clean. You tell the agent you already use that the milestone landed, and it records the receipt against that specific grant milestone — on-chain transaction and all — into a revenue account that is grant income, not paid work.
The grant-versus-earned split is built into your books, not reconstructed later
Because grant income and paid work land in distinct revenue accounts the moment each one arrives, the separation a foundation wants to see is a property of your ledger — not a spreadsheet you rebuild the week a report is due. A retainer from a protocol team, a one-off bounty, a scoped payout: each falls into the right place on its own. When the funder asks how their money was spent versus what you earned elsewhere, the answer is already in the books.
Every way grant-funded teams get paid, landed where it belongs
Grants, paid work, and bounties each land in the right place.
- Foundation grants released in milestone tranches, in stablecoin or fiat.
- Protocol or client retainers for paid work, kept separate from grants.
- One-off bounties and scoped payouts.
- On-chain receipts recorded against the right grant milestone.
Grants vs. earned revenue
Grant income and paid work land in distinct revenue accounts, so the split your funders want is built into your books, not reconstructed later.
On-chain tranches, recorded
Grant tranches paid in USDC and other stablecoins are recorded against the milestone by transaction, no spreadsheet reconciliation.
Record a tranche by asking
Tell the agent you already use that a milestone tranche landed; it records the income and ties it to the grant.
Decision-ready books
Funding in versus spend out, on real books, so your agent can tell you how much runway each grant actually buys.
Once the split is clean, you can finally see what each grant buys you
Funder trust is the first payoff — hand a foundation books that already prove grant income never got mixed with paid work, and you skip the awkward reconstruction. The second payoff is your own: with funding in and spend out on real, tied-out books, your agent can tell you how much runway each grant actually buys, and how much of a quarter's income was grant money versus revenue you earned. That's the difference between hoping the next tranche lands in time and knowing exactly when it needs to.
A grant-funded lab's first quarter · in journal entries
Grants and earned revenue, never blurred.
Scroll through Meridian Protocol Labs' first quarter — foundation tranches, a DAO retainer, a spec milestone. Each lands on its own account, so the split is bookkeeping, not archaeology.
Three founders, one lab
Lena, Marco, and Samir found Meridian with $25,000. No investors — the runway is grants and earned work.
4 tool calls
Economicocreate_share_class✓- Economicoissue_shares✓
- Economicoissue_shares✓
- Economicoissue_shares✓
Tranche 1 is approved
Helios Foundation greenlights $30,000 for protocol research. It books as grant revenue — its own account, apart from earned work.
3 tool calls
- Economicocreate_party✓
- Economicocreate_contract✓
- Economicocreate_invoice✓
The tranche lands; costs start
The wire arrives. GitHub seats go on the card; AuditWorks' security review sits in payables until it's due.
3 tool calls
- Economicorecord_payment✓
- Economicoreceive_bill✓
- Economicoreceive_bill✓
Earned revenue, alongside
Tessera DAO signs a $9,000 protocol retainer — paid work, on a different account than the grants.
3 tool calls
- Economicocreate_party✓
- Economicocreate_contract✓
- Economicocreate_invoice✓
Tranche 2 and a milestone
The reference implementation earns tranche 2 — $25,000 — while a $6,500 spec-review milestone ships to the Attestation Guild.
3 tool calls
- Economicocreate_invoice✓
- Economicocreate_invoice✓
- Economicosend_invoice✓
The quarter closes, split intact
Grants on one line, earned work on another — the report a funder actually wants to see.
2 tool calls
- Economicoget_income_statement✓
- Economicosummarize_revenue✓
Ask it the moment the tranche lands
The 50,000 USDC milestone tranche from the foundation just landed on Base — record it against the ecosystem grant.
Send the 12,000 USDC monthly maintenance retainer to the protocol team.
How much of this quarter's income was grant funding versus earned revenue, and what's my runway?
What you'll use
The money loop, tuned for grant-funded teams.
Get started
The finance team you don't have to hire.
Hand your agent the setup guide and it walks through the rest — real books from day one, no dashboard, no finance hire.