If you have the donations fund you don't need pay a development team.
Try to negotiate with exchanges, HITBTC will list AEON for sure if you are willing to pay.
HitBTC already said on twitter they are going to list AEON. We didn't have to pay.
https://twitter.com/hitbtc/status/864491788299628545But if you can list AEON at big exchange like KRAKEN and trade it not for BTC only but for EUR/USD as well - it will promote the coin much better than any development team.
It would be very unusual for a major exchange to list a #136 coinmarketcap rank coin. I won't say it is impossible but I will say it is a lot more likely to happen if we grow the community and the value first.