Grant Application - Conversational AI Agent to Access CoW Ecosystem

[gicappaemme]

Grant Title

Introducing Helva: Conversational AI Agent to Access CoW Ecosystem

Author

@gicappaemme

Experiences and qualifications

The team behind Helva’s development brings a strong mix of technical expertise and hands-on experience in incubating DeFi protocols:

• Giacomo – Engineer, Fullstack Python Developer. Previously worked within the Hedera ecosystem and co-founded Sirio, a DeFi protocol that raised over $720,000 across grants and pre-seed rounds, reaching a TVL of $2M in less than a week.
• Andrew – PhD in Data Science, AI developer with deep expertise across AI systems (Agents, CV, LLMs, etc.). Collaborated with Giacomo on a Machine Learning system for liquidation detection on Sirio.
• Marco – Engineering student with strong knowledge of blockchain architectures and extensive experience across JS-oriented programming languages and frameworks (Solidity, Vue, React, etc.). Provided significant contributions to Sirio’s Front-End components.

Grant Description

Helva is an AI agent that makes EVM-compatible DeFi ecosystems radically more accessible through a simple conversational prompt. Helva connects her smart LLM to major DeFi protocols and make their functions accessible through Natural-Language. With Helva, users can:

1. Trade via standard swaps or leveraged perpetuals
2. Perform, manage and optimize yield strategies based on risk profile and token category (e.g., stablecoins, bluechips)
3. Run technical or fundamental analysis across ecosystems
4. Automate repetitive DeFi tasks
5. Combine tools (e.g., analysis + trade) for a seamless user experience

We already built an MVP of Helva, that anyone can check in the link attached below in the ‘Other Informations’ section.

Our intended Outcome with Helva is to make her a CoW-Centric DeFi Product, more accessible and safe for all the customer segments we target (Retail Users, B2B Customers). We can summarize our goals in the following points:

• Lower Barriers for Retail Users: A beginner can type “swap 50 % of my USDC for ETH” and Helva will use CoW to execute it, hiding complexity and reducing user error.
• Expanded Ecosystem Reach: Wallets and CEXs integrating our API will funnel more volume into CoW, increasing its liquidity and market share.

The goal of this grant is to integrate the CoW suite of services into Helva, making her CoW-centric and granting CoW exclusivity over specific prompts/functions within Helva (If appreciated, we would always show CoW logo on the beside of Helva’s one):

• CoW Swap (Exclusivity) – Every time a user requests a swap on Helva, we will leverage the CoWSwap infrastructure and perform a swap through CoW.
• CoW AMM – Integrate CoW AMM LPs for all Helva users who want to create yield strategies with the supported tokens.
• CoW Token – Integrate the CoW token to enable advanced analytics and yield strategies, including staking.
• Additional Integrations – We are open to discussing any further integrations that could strengthen the collaboration.

We believe that integrating Helva with CoW Protocol could deliver significant adoption benefits for the CoW Ecosystem. In more detail:

1. Onboard New Users: Helva’s conversational interface lowers the barrier to entry for both novice and experienced traders.
2. Increase in volume: By routing all swaps and yield strategies through CoW, every Helva user becomes a CoW user, driving up transaction counts and overall liquidity.
3. Better user experience → higher retention: A simple prompt system, MEV‑resistant settlement via CoWSwap, and automated yield strategies will make users more likely to stick with CoW-backed services.
4. Expanded B2B adoption: The REST API we plan to build allows wallets, custodians and centralized exchanges to offer CoW services to their customers. This opens the door to B2B partners, expanding CoW’s reach.
5. Increase in CoW Token Adoption: Expanding Analyses and Staking to Helva users, CoW Token can significantly improve its usage and adoption.
6. Push on the CoW x AI Integration: Integrating CoW with AI would be a great upgrade for the brand itself, that could be leveraged in co-marketing and businesses opportunities as well.

We believe the community will benefit from Helva and CoW integration in similar ways, by accessing CoW Services in a simpler way and watching CoW Token Adoption increasing exponentially. For this reason, we apply in the Grant Category of UX/UI Improvement.

We already built most of Helva Architecture, althought we didn’t start to promote her. We can summarize the Methodoloy and Technologies used in the following Points:

1. Interaction Layer: A stateless API or an easy-to-use User Interface will allow customers to use Helva and trigger CoW operations.
2. AI Layer: We will use LangChain to manage natural-language understanding and planning. A dual‑LLM setup will handle prompt interpretation and transaction execution.
3. Web3 Infrastructure: Cow integration will be built in Python using web3.py like any other protocol already integrated.

Type of Grant

We propose a milestone-based grant: a milestone is considered successfully delivered only after specific goals or KPIs are met. That way CoW DAO rewards us only when tangible benefits are realized.

Milestones

Milestone	Title	Due Date	Funding Request
Milestone 1	CoW Swap Integration	3 weeks after acceptance	400 xDAI + 1030 COW (Vested)
Milestone 2	CoW AMM Integration	8 weeks after acceptance	900 xDAI + 2200 COW (Vested)
Milestone 3	CoW Token Integration	10 weeks after acceptance	600 xDAI + 1400 COW (Vested)
Milestone 4	LLM Token Burnt Cost	22 weeks after acceptance	3.6K xDAI + 8,8k COW (Vested)

1. Milestone 1 – CoWSwap Integration (Exclusivity)

   • Deliverables: Integrate CoW Swap’s infrastructure into Helva so that any swap request is executed via CoW.

   • KPIs: Helva users executing swaps via CoW on Mainnet; 4 total swap tested through CoWSwap with different prompts.

   • Timeline: 3 weeks after grant acceptance.

   • Funding Request Breakdown: Development, test and integration into the Agent of the CoW Swap Tool

2. Milestone 2 – CoW AMM Integration

   • Deliverables: Enable Helva users to supply/withdraw liquidity and build yield strategies using CoW AMM LP tokens.

   • KPIs: Deployment to mainnet; 5 Total liquidity transactions processed through Helva for CoW AMM pools with different prompts.

   • Timeline: 8 weeks after acceptance.

   • Funding Request Breakdown: Development, test and integration into the Agent of the CoW AMM Tool

3. Milestone 3 – CoW Token Integration

   • Deliverables: Add advanced analytics and staking functionality for the CoW token within Helva’s UI.

   • KPIs: Staking operationsand token analysis tested through 2 different prompts

   • Timeline: 10 weeks after acceptance

   • Funding Request Breakdown: Development, test and integration into the Agent of the Token Analysis Tool, CoW Token Staking Tool

4. Milestone 4 – Mainnet Lunch and Token Refund

   • Deliverables: Helva live and fully performing CoW tools on mainnet, with all CoW integrations operational.

   • KPIs: The milestone is reached when Helva users have collectively executed at least 200 swaps, 50 AMM calls, 100 CoW analyses and 50 staking operations via the CoW integrations.

   • Timeline: 22 weeks after acceptance.

   • Funding Request Breakdown: This milestone covers a sustainable financial support for the tokens burned for the LLM subscription we need to perform users’ CoW tools executions, so that they can enjoy CoW Tools for free.

Lenght

We plan to start work immediately upon approval of the proposal on the CoW Swap integration. From that commencement date we estimate the full programme will require 22 weeks (about 5.5 months) to complete. This window covers all development, integration and testing tasks, as well as the initial roll‑out of our user and partner onboarding.

Should our launch marketing strategy require additional coordination with partners, we may request (if possible) a length exception of up to 4 additional weeks. This would extend the overall duration to a maximum of 26 weeks.

Funding Request

Our total funding request for this milestone‑based project isaround USD 9,200, at the time of writing, that translates to 5,520 xDAI and **about 13,530 COW tokens. **
Early milestones focus on smart‑contract integration, prompt engineering and testing of all the tools integrated. The last milestone, include a financial support for the Tokens we will burn to perform CoW Tools called by users, allowing them to access them through Helva for free.

Gnosis Chain Address

0xFAe2dac0686f0e543704345aEBBe0AEcab4EDA3d

Other Informations

We already made significant steps forward on Helva’s Development, both technical and stategical. Here’s a Demo on how Helva works and her Documentation (Architecture, PRomot Engineering etc.):

• Demo
• Documentation

Terms and Conditions

By submitting this grant application, I acknowledge and agree to be bound by the CoW DAO Participation Agreement and the CoW DAO Grant Agreement Terms.

Notes

We have strategically chosen to launch Helva on Polygon to leverage better support and familiarity with that ecosystem (and we can readily continue our CoW integration there). However, if the committee approves our proposal and asks us to deploy on another EVM chain for strategic reasons, we are able to do so and prioritize it.

Also, please note: as new users I have a limit on links I can share, but all three members of our team have LinkedIn and Github Account with proven past activity.

Thank you all for your attention, and we hope for a positive outcome!

[Sov]

Thanks for the proposal. The Council reviewed your conversational AI agent concept and thinks it’s better suited for our Retro Round than a milestone grant:

CoW Grants - Retro Round is Open for Applications

The Retro Round is now open for submissions! This thread will help with information on how to participate. As a reminder, we started the discussion here, and we appreciate all the comments and suggestions from the community: Submission Process Post in our grants category: https://forum.cow.fi/c/cow-grants-program/ Title your post: [RETRO ROUND] Your Project Name Use our standard grant application template: https://forum.cow.fi/t/for-grantees-grant-application-template/2768 Follow …

The retro round rewards based on demonstrated impact, ideal for projects like this where adoption is uncertain. You can build, launch, track usage metrics, then apply with traction to be considered for funding.

[gicappaemme]

Thanks for the kind response! We will submit for Retro Round as soon as possible.