Pump.fun, the memecoin launchpad on Solana, has launched Pump Fund, its investment fund with an initial $3 million dedicated to supporting ‘early-stage’ startups beyond pure memecoins.
The first program is a 30-day ‘Build in Public’ Hackathon, funding 12 projects at $250,000 each (valued at $10 million). In addition to capital, winners will receive exclusive mentoring from Pump Fund’s founders to boost their growth.
A hackathon is a short-term event (from a few days to several weeks) where developers, designers, marketers, and creators come together (physically or online) to quickly build a product, a product prototype, or a token around a given theme.
An Opening Beyond Crypto
One of the highlights of this event is its flexibility regarding eligibility criteria. It is not mandatory to present a ‘crypto-native’ project to participate. Whether you are building a SaaS application, a consumer service, or a traditional technological innovation, the hackathon is open to all creators capable of demonstrating solid execution.
Although the core of the project may be traditional: it is imperative to launch a token on Pump.fun as part of the hackathon.
The project’s founding team must also hold at least 10% of the total token ‘supply’ that will be launched with the project, and it is strongly encouraged to share project progress on X, build an active community, and use the streaming service on Pump.fun to create network effects.
The jury will favor organic traction and speed of execution rather than just relationships; participants must fill out a form before February 18 to qualify.
Why a Pump Fun Hackathon?
According to Alon (co-founder of Pump Fun), the founders of Pump Fun went through numerous experiments and failures before the platform’s success: DeFi apps, SocialFi, and NFTs that struggled to take off.
For Alon, the main obstacle was distribution: connecting products to the right users was extremely challenging, even with solid ideas. This trial-and-error phase revealed that without immediate visibility and accessible liquidity, projects remained invisible despite their potential.
Pump.fun solved this problem by offering instant liquidity for tokens launched on the platform.
The Pump Fun team quickly realized that users loved buying ‘fresh’ tokens, creating a virtuous circle: rapid funding for builders and trading opportunities. The emergence of the Web3 AI agents trend in 2024 amplified this by showing a persistent demand for the tokenization of early-stage projects, regardless of market cycles.
Pump Fund: a New Way to Boost Activity on Pump Fun
The Pump Fund is an excellent addition to revitalize activity on the platform. With revenues generated from trading fees on Pump.fun (historically totaling $977 million), the platform reallocates a portion of these funds to finance early-stage projects through its hackathon.
This encourages new token launches, increases trading volume, and revitalizes the memecoin ecosystem and beyond, while offering significant visibility to new projects for the start of 2026. The team plans to expand initiatives to keep the focus on their platform.
This strategy directly benefits the PUMP token, as increased platform activity generates more revenue, which is mainly used for PUMP token buybacks (~100% of fees, already reducing the circulating supply by over 19%).
By supporting promising projects, the Pump Fund aims to create a virtuous circle that supports the price and utility of PUMP.
