Former Polychain Partner Tekin Salimi Unveils $125M Fund With Plans to Become DAO

Tekin Salimi, the former general partner at the leading crypto venture capital firm Polychain Capital, recently revealed that he will be launching a $125 million venture fund dubbed dao5.

Tekin Salimi Launches $125M Fund

According to a Wednesday report by Forbes, dao5 will invest in early-stage crypto-related startups and projects focused on various industry sectors, including DeFi, DAOs, gaming, NFTs, and layer 1 blockchains.

dao5, which had secured $125 million from several “crypto-native” investors and Salimi himself, will make seed investments ranging from $500,000 to $2 million.

dao5 to be Converted into a DAO in 2025

Salimi’s ultimate goal is to convert the fund into a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) in three years. 

“The goal of dao5 is to explore a new model to bootstrapping a DAO. By focusing first on talent and capital acquisition through venture investing, and second on growing the treasury value through leveraging the collective talent of the dao5 community,” he said. 

According to the report, whenever dao5 invests in a new project, the founder is allocated a portion of the governance tokens representing the fund’s profits. There is no mention, however, of how many tokens will be issued and the percentage each portfolio founder will receive.

Over time, this process enables every portfolio founder to have financial exposure to the tokens of other portfolio founders. This gives them a direct incentive to work together and collectively drive up the tokens’ prices.

Once dao5 is converted, the fund will be dissolved, and the tokens will be minted and issued to the fund’s investment team, advisory board, and portfolio company founders.

The fund will be managed by Salimi along with several high-profile individuals who will make up the advisory board. These include Avalanche network founder Emin Gün Sirer, Luna protocol founder, Do Kwon, Moonpay founder, Ivan Soto-Wright, and others.

Speaking of DAOs, popular cryptocurrency wallet provider MetaMask recently revealed plans to launch a DAO to fund its wallet growth, in addition to launching its native token. 

Featured Image Courtesy of Linkedin