# Participants Participants contribute to funding rounds of projects on Polimec. A trusted third party classifies them into the following categories based on their financial circumstances, governance status, or professional experience: ## Retail The category retail is assigned to individuals who do not qualify as professionals. ## Professional The category professional is assigned to individuals who: * are considered [High Net Worth Individuals (HNWI)](#user-content-fn-1)[^1], or * possess the necessary knowledge based on education, professional experience, or comparable experience in the financial sector to understand the risks of financial decisions and have at their disposal assets of a certain amount ## Institutional The category institutional is assigned to legal entities (non-natural persons) that qualify as professionals, such as: * Regulated financial intermediaries (e.g. banks, fund management companies, securities dealers, asset managers, regulated insurance companies, etc.) * Companies with dedicated professional treasury departments While professional and institutional participants are needed to bootstrap[^2] a project economically, retail participants fulfill further funding needs and form an essential part of community building and a distributed token holder base. The three categories are based on terminologies that are commonly used in traditional financial markets. Funding rounds on Polimec are structured to ensure the participation of all three participant types at a similar price, with transparency in token allocations, multipliers, and vesting schedules. The participant categories impact the multipliers and corresponding vesting periods. [^1]: High net worth individuals, commonly referred to as HNWIs, are individuals with substantial financial resources and investable assets. [^2]: Self-launching a business without or with only minimum external capital. --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://hub.polimec.org/learn/network-participants/participants.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.