DeFi Alliance Raises $50M, Shifts to DAO Structure

DeFi Alliance is a Web3 startup accelerator that has helped more than 90 startups including 0x, Alpha Finance, dYdX, Kyber, Olympus DAO, Paraswap, Ribbon Finance, Sushiswap, Synthetix, Zerion, and others

article-image

Alliance DAO

share

key takeaways

  • “The next logical step will be turning [DeFi Alliance] into a DAO and giving up ownership of the accelerator program to the community,” Imran Khan, pilot at DeFi Alliance told Blockworks
  • “Our goal is to be the nation state or DAO for builders that can scale Web3 to billions of users,” Khan said

DeFi Alliance has raised $50 million from contributors of its newly formed Alliance DAO to help founders grow in the space, Imran Khan, pilot at DeFi Alliance and venture partner at Volt Capital told Blockworks in an interview. 

DeFi Alliance, in which Blockworks Co-founder Jason Yanowitz is an investor, is a Web3 startup accelerator that has helped more than 90 startups. Some of the top DeFi projects by market capitalization like 0x, Alpha Finance, dYdX, Kyber, Olympus DAO, Paraswap, Ribbon Finance, Sushiswap, Synthetix, and Zerion participated in past programs. 

“The next logical step will be turning [DeFi Alliance] into a DAO and giving up ownership of the accelerator program to the community,” Khan said. “DeFi Alliance’s name will be deprecated over time and replaced with Alliance or Alliance DAO,” he noted. 

The decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) will run as the first “digital startup nation” and initially consist of roughly 300 contributors who were a part of the raise. The funds will be used to expand the team and software, Khan said. 

The list of contributors includes notable members of the crypto community like Twitch Co-founder Kevin Lin, Gemini Co-founders and President/CEO Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, Terra Founder Do Kwon, OpenSea Co-founder and CEO Devin Finzer, Aave Founder Stani Kulechov, Circle Co-founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire and BlockFi Founder Zac Prince, to name a few. 

While most accelerator programs are run by a centralized team, as DeFi Alliance was previously, having the DAO and community running it will change the landscape and ecosystem, Khan said. 

“Ultimately, you go faster when you have a community that can help connect the dots,” Khan commented. “By bringing stakeholders together, you can help founders coming into the program. With the community, you can get an answer quickly,” through elements like crowdsourcing or token incentives, he added.

“Our goal is to be the nation state or DAO for builders that can scale Web3 to billions of users,” Khan said. “Whether you have an idea, validating an idea or want to build in any sector in crypto. We want to be a platform for builders to succeed,” he added. 

In 2022, the DAO will run three batches of its accelerator program and may re-evaluate in 2023 to lower it to two batches, Jocelyn Robancho, head of operations at DeFi Alliance said to Blockworks. 

The program has a 2 to 5% acceptance rate and is targeting to bring on 25 startups for each cycle, but would increase to 30 to 35 startups if necessary, she said. Upon graduating from the program, founders can become contributors to the startup nation. 

Within the next few months, Alliance will share a white paper and other materials to explain how it will govern, operate and what services it will provide. 

“We’re taking a structured approach compared to a traditional DAO raise,” Khan noted. The DeFi Alliance team invited domain experts from certain crypto sectors to help provide support for Web3 startups in the program from areas like gaming and NFTs to DeFi and traditional finance. 

Over time, the number of contributors will grow organically and on an as-needed basis, Khan said. 


Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter.

Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter.

Get alpha directly in your inbox with the 0xResearch newsletter — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.

The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. Subscribe to daily Solana news from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.

Tags

Upcoming Events

Salt Lake City, UT

MON - TUES, OCT. 7 - 8, 2024

Blockworks and Bankless in collaboration with buidlbox are excited to announce the second installment of the Permissionless Hackathon – taking place October 7-8 in Salt Lake City, Utah. We’ve partnered with buidlbox to bring together the brightest minds in crypto for […]

Salt Lake City, UT

WED - FRI, OCTOBER 9 - 11, 2024

Permissionless is a conference for founders, application developers, and users. Come meet the next generation of people building and using crypto.

Javits Center North | 445 11th Ave

Tues - Thurs, March 18 - 20, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

4.png

Research

This months PPGC covered four main areas. Firstly, debriefing the progress and status of the mainnet implementation of the Ahmedabad hard fork. Secondly, a retrospective on the testnet phase of the Ahemdabad Hard Fork. Thirdly, an update on PIP-36 which involves replaying failed state syncs. Lastly, PIP-47 which pushes upgrades to the Polygon Protocol Council.

article-image

An SEC spokesperson told Blockworks the Ripple judgment clashes with Supreme Court precedent and securities laws

article-image

Both parties now embrace pro-crypto policies to win voters

article-image

Plus, how we are feeling about Gurbir Grewal’s departure from the SEC

article-image

Spain-based Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria has been working in the new Visa Tokenized Asset Platform sandbox

article-image

The retail crowd is engaging with Robinhood both on and off chain, general manager Johann Kerbrat said