Interchain Foundation

Interchain Foundation

The Interchain Foundation (ICF) was established in 2017 as a Swiss stiftung, seeded by the Cosmos ICO which raised roughly $16.8M in 2017 (per CoinDesk). It was founded by Ethan Buchman, Jae Kwon, and Chris Goes, with a mandate to support the development of the Cosmos ecosystem — a decentralized network of interoperable blockchains. The foundation operates as a nonprofit, not an asset manager. ICF allocates capital through grants, investments, and operational spending across research, development, and community programs. Asset-class engagement includes tokens, equity in ecosystem companies, direct grants, and validator staking. The foundation has funded projects including IBC development, the Cosmos Hub, and interchain security protocols. Its geographic footprint spans North America, Europe, and Asia, with offices in George Town, Prague, San Francisco, London, Incline Village, Baar-Zug, and Tokyo. ICF's council and directors oversee a relatively lean team — exact professional count is not disclosed. The foundation has issued public financial reports, including a 2024 report detailing $40M in grants and operational expenses (per the firm). Adjacent structures include The Interchain Foundation's charitable mandate, with no separately branded operating company. The ICF's structural differentiator is its mission-aligned capital deployment: it exists solely to support the Cosmos ecosystem, not to maximize returns. That mandate shapes unusually long time horizons for grants and investments, and its governance is de jure independent of any single validator or commercial entity.