I do agree that developing steem needs some more attention. However I must say that I'm not sure if this type of funding is needed. I could see that at the current blocktrades for example (and most prefetably them) could make an account dedicated for developement fund for their own smt protocol. They are a trusted and from my understanding very skilled people.

Here I want to add that this whole problem may not be funding but instead lack of communication and organized effort from dapp-devs side. It is so strange how many steem apps are at the top 20 dapps, yet it is hard to find any action in form of discussions about these matters. Other crappy cryptos have their reddit full of posts about projects. Maybe it is just that steemit is not optimal for sharing these projects, wich could explain why there seems to be nothing going on.