Teluma

Teluma — Hackathon Submission Inspiration Every year, billions of dollars in non-dilutive grant capital go unallocated while underfunded African startups, SMEs, and non-profits collapse for lack of runway. The problem isn't that money doesn't exist; it's that accessing it is broken on both ends of the pipeline: Discovery and Execution . Small teams spend hundreds of hours manually wading through fragmented foundation portals, unsure if they even qualify. Meanwhile, traditional grant-writing agencies charge per application — an expensive tollbooth for everyday businesses. I dedicated my build to bridging this gap. What keeps me up at night is seeing high-impact Nigerian founders fail simply because they lacked a dedicated grant team. What gets me up in the morning is building Teluma : an AI-native OS in Money & Financial Access that puts an enterprise-grade grant discovery, scoring, and proposal-drafting team in every founder's pocket on autopilot. What It Does & AI-Native Operations Teluma is an autonomous, multi-agent grant management platform that turns document repositories into non-dilutive capital. Under the hood, Teluma operates a continuous 5-Agent AI Pipeline orchestrated via the Google Agent Development Kit (ADK) and Gemini 3.5 Flash : [ Web Feeds ] ──> ( AG1: Discovery ) ──> [ Postgres DB ] ──> ( AG2: RAG Fit Evaluator ) │ ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ▼ ( AG3: Outline Strategist ) ──> [ Human Review ] ──> ( AG4: Proposal & Budget Writer ) │ v [ Auto-Vault Storage & PDF Export ] <── [ Human Approval ] <── ( AG5: Quality Reviewer ) AG1 (Discovery Agent) : Continuously searches global web feeds for active funding calls open to African entities. AG2 (Fit Evaluator) : Extracts document passages from the user's private Vault and computes relevance, sorting matches into Prime Match ($\ge 90$), Moderate Fit ($60-89$), or Low Probability ($40-59$). AG3 (Proposal Strategist) : Synthesizes structured proposal outlines tailored to grant rules. AG4 (Proposal & Budget Writer) : Drafts complete proposal narratives and itemized budget tables grounded strictly in Vault facts. AG5 (Quality Control Auditor) : Evaluates compliance against funder word limits before human review. Users watch agent tool calls in real time via Server-Sent Events (SSE) telemetry ( /agents/stream/{run_id} ) and chat directly with agents to refine drafts before final sign-off. How I Built It I chose technologies that balance precision, security, and scalability: AI Core : Google ADK + Vertex AI & Gemini 3.5 Flash with custom RAG passage retrieval ( utils/rag_engine.py ) to eliminate hallucination. Backend & Database : FastAPI (Python) with SQLAlchemy ORM and Supabase PostgreSQL for strict relational integrity across users, grants, applications, and documents. Supabase handles secure JWT authentication. Storage & Telemetry : Google Cloud Storage (separate encrypted buckets for Vault documents and rendered PDF outputs served via GCS Signed URLs) and an Server-Sent Events ( SSE ) endpoint ( GET /agents/stream/{run_id} ) streaming live agent tool execution steps directly to the frontend Frontend : Next.js (App Router, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS) for reactive UI dashboards. Monetization & Email : Bachs API for USD/NGN subscription checkout sessions with HMAC-SHA256 webhooks; SendByte API for transactional email notifications. Deployment : Render with GCP Service Account credentials. — Challenges Ran Into Document Privacy & User Trust : The single biggest non-technical hurdle was overcoming user hesitation around uploading sensitive organizational records (tax clearance, audited financials, incorporation certs). Testers were understandably guarded. I solved this by implementing strict per-organization isolation, clear data privacy guarantees, and enforcing that Vault documents are used only for deterministic prompt grounding — never for model re-training. Agent Session & State Synchronization : Wiring Google ADK agents into async FastAPI endpoints created subtle concurrency and session management challenges across worker processes. I resolved this by persisting cancellation flags ( cancel_requested ) and agent status directly to the PostgreSQL database so state remains synchronized across multi-worker environments. Third-Party API Integration Hurdles : Integrating local payments (Bachs webhook HMAC verification) and transactional email (SendByte) required extensive debugging due to evolving SDK documentation and signature verification tolerances. Accomplishments I'm Proud Of AI-Native Operations (Autonomous 5-Agent Execution) : Successfully building a fully autonomous multi-agent pipeline where 5 Google ADK agents hand off work, perform real web searches, ground outputs using a RAG retriever, and stream live execution telemetry via SSE without requiring manual code intervention. User-Validated Output Precision : Testing with real target users who validated that AG2 match rankings and AG4 proposal narratives were accurate, compliant, and grounded in their uploaded facts. High-Conversion Monetization Architecture : Engineering a freemium model that caps free feed matches at 10 items (preventing grant title Google search bypass) and provides 1 lifetime sample proposal draft, driving conversion into paid tiers ($10/mo Starter, $25/mo Pro, $80/mo Agency). Category Impact (Money & Financial Access) : Creating a platform that levels the playing field for small businesses and non-profits, allowing a 2-person team to apply for capital with the speed and quality of a Fortune 500 grant-writing department. What I Learned (Build $\rightarrow$ Measure $\rightarrow$ Learn) Business Viability : Freemium design isn't just about giving features away - it requires balancing value delivery with revenue protection. Capping free feed items and locking multi-organization agency profiles protects unit economics while creating clear conversion triggers. AI Tooling Precision : Gained deep hands-on expertise in Google ADK agent orchestration, RAG retrieval engines, and real-time SSE streaming architectures. Category Impact : Democratizing access to non-dilutive capital is the highest-leverage growth engine for African small businesses and civic organizations. Removing the grant-writer barrier directly fuels economic resilience in emerging markets. What's Next (Repeatability & Moonshot Scale) Agency Multi-Org Profiles ($80/mo) : Enabling grant consultants to manage up to 5 distinct client organization profiles with isolated Vaults from a single dashboard. ML Grant Outcome Feedback Loop : Tracking application outcomes (Won/Lost) to automatically refine AG2 fit-scoring weights over time. Compliance Auto-Nudges & Mobile PWA : Automated alerts for expiring document certificates and a mobile-first PWA for on-the-go founders.