Our Story
From a Harvard Blockchain Hackathon idea to empowering thousands of developers worldwide. Here's how MergeFund came to life and where we're headed next.
The Journey
From problem identification to solution, here's how MergeFund evolved
Despite thousands of developers pouring sweat into open-source, almost none get paid. Students leave hackathons with polished portfolios—but zero monetization. Maintainers struggle to fund priority issues. Traditional donations rarely translate into shipped code, and existing bounty sites sit outside of GitHub's native workflows.
Originator: Matt first pitched the idea at the EasyA Harvard Blockchain Hackathon—'what if GitHub issues could be funded like Fiverr gigs, but driven by GoFundMe-style donations and settled in crypto?' Name coined: That night, over coffee, the team landed on MergeFund—where funding meets merges.
After Harvard, Isaac and Damien hopped on a plane to Toronto for the Consensus Hackathon (hosted by EasyA). Goals: Deepen relationships with sponsors, refine the funding-to-merge flow, and demo a rough prototype. Outcomes: Secured early commitments for a $15K seed pool and invaluable feedback.
With the core team back home, Isaac drove 9 hours and slept in his car one night to get to SpurHacks in Toronto. His dedication paid off: Traction: 150 new waitlist signups in 48 hours. Achievement: Won Best Web3 and $3,000 in prizes. Post-hackathon: Isaac was invited to Spur Accelerator with a chance to pitch for one million dollars in funding.
Today's Impact
The numbers that show our progress
Built By Hackathon Champions
Meet the founders who started it all
Isaac Gbaba
Berkeley Labs, PCG, built WaterTAP UI
Matthew Boekamp
Hanover Insurance, full-stack engineer
Damien Johnson
AWS, Accenture, John Deere
Evelyn Yaskin
Fidelity/eMoney frontend engineer
Alvin He
CVS, prev. Discord + Dell, growth lead
3 consecutive wins for MergeFund
Team has placed at 7+ major hackathons
All co-founders are full-stack ready and battle-tested
Won Best Web3 at SpurHacks ($3,000)
3rd place at Consensus ($1,500)
3rd place at Harvard Blockchain Hackathon
Chance to pitch for $1M in funding
Business Model & Financials
Sustainable growth through fair pricing
Take Rate
per bounty
Year-1 Target
in volume
Revenue
projected
Funding Goal
target raise
What's Next
Our roadmap for the future
Maintainer dashboard: Real-time funding & contributor analytics
Enterprise tier: White-label bounty pools for companies
DAO integration: On-chain governance of collective funds
Mobile app: Push alerts for new bounties & merge confirmations
Series A prep: Demonstrate $250K GMV/month toward a $5M raise