Venture DAOs

Empowering Community-Led Growth

Venture DAOs are a more revolutionary model. Venture DAOs are decentralized autonomous organizations that pool capital from their members (who hold governance tokens) to make collective investments in web3 projects. They are typically more open, transparent, and community-driven than traditional VCs.

Notable Examples:

• The LAO: One of the first and most prominent Venture DAOs. It's a network of Ethereum enthusiasts and experts who pool capital to make early-stage investments in Ethereum-based projects.

• How it works: Members contribute ETH for proportional ownership and voting rights on which projects to fund. It operates within a legal wrapper to comply with US regulations.

• MetaCartel Ventures (MCV): A for-profit DAO that is often seen as more agile and risk-tolerant than The LAO. It focuses on very early-stage "pre-token" projects and dApps.

• How it works: Membership is permissioned but requires consensus from existing members. They are known for investing in foundational DeFi and DAO projects.

• BitDAO (Now Mantle): While it has evolved, BitDAO started as one of the largest DAOs in the world, backed by Peter Thiel, Founders Fund, and Pantera Capital. It had a massive treasury (billions) to invest in the crypto ecosystem.

• Known for: Its enormous size and focus on grants, partnerships, and investments to grow the broader web3 space. It has since merged its efforts with the Mantle L2 network.

• Orange DAO: A DAO made up of over 1,000 alumni from the top accelerator program Y Combinator (YC). Their mission is to invest in the next generation of web3 startups, particularly those founded by other YC alumni.

• Known for: Leveraging the powerful YC network for deal flow and support.

• Syndicate Protocol: While not a DAO itself, Syndicate is a critical infrastructure provider. It allows anyone to easily create and run their own investment DAOs or decentralized syndicates with just a few clicks, dramatically lowering the barrier to entry for collective investing.

Key Differences:

Feature	Traditional VC	Decentralized VC (Venture DAO)
Structure	Centralized Firm	Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO)
Decision Making	Centralized (Partners)	Collective (Token-based Governance)
Capital Source	Limited Partners (LPs)	Community of Token Holders
Transparency	Usually Low (Private deals)	Usually High (On-chain activity)
Access	Restricted	Often more open to a global community

The space is constantly changing, with traditional VCs adopting more DAO-like features and Venture DAOs becoming more professionally managed. Both models are crucial for funding the innovation happening in web3.