MetaCartel DAO

Basics

• A ecosystem of creators and operators building decentralized applications (DApps)
• Announced (20-5-2020) that it will be pivoting to a DAO incubator - working closely with early-stage projects to spawn and curate community-driven organizations.
• From their website (1-2020):

"Since late 2018, we have grown an active community of over 800+ builders and held over 30+ meetups all the world and holds an active presence at most major Ethereum developer events. Since the July of 2019, we have deployed over $44,500 USD in grant funding and support to over 13 DApps in finding initial customers and pilot opportunities."

• From this article on DAOs (26-8-2020):

"MetaCartel is a global organization of over 800+ founders, builders, engineers, community builders, product people, investors, and other operators. (Raid Guild is its community-run dev shop.) The organization is an active player in the Ethereum development community, helping to guide early-stage DApp teams into grant funding and operational support. They have deployed $90K+ to over 23 DApps since July 2019.

MetaCartel’s mission is “to accelerate the creation of Web 3 with the belief that it will make the world a richer, fairer place.” Their grant fund, MetaCartel DAO, is supported by contributions from NuCypher, AdEx Network, Matic, and other projects.

“MetaCartel is a community of doers who gather weekly to discuss the hardest and most fun problems that surround us all, and then align on how we can best support innovation forward. These days it is more like a community of communities, and has become my home.”
— Ven Gist, Paladin at MetaCartel"

Investments

• Gives grants as a decentralized autonomous organisation: MetaCartel DAO
• They have had 3 waves so far (1-2020). And about 15 projects on the website, one of which is rDAI (as of 1-2020 on the website).
• "Their grant fund, MetaCartel DAO, is supported by contributions from NuCypher, AdEx Network, Matic, and other projects."
• Axie Infinity; part of a $7.5M raise (11-5-2021).
• The Defiant; one of many investors who took part in the $1.4M raise for Defiant Media (12-4-2021).
• DeFi Safety; part of the 1$M Seed Round (6-8-2021)
• DeFiZap. Gave a grant to DeFiZap.

• EPNS; is named as one of the backers (7-5-2021).
• Gitcoin; was part of a $11.4M raise for them (14-4-2021).
• Opium Protocol; its website names MetaCartel as one of its backers (7-3-2021).

• Overlay; part of a $2.215M funding raising round (18-3-2021).
• PoolTogether; participated a funding round (12-2020).
• Reflexer; on of its backers (22-2-2021).
• Gave grants to 15 projects in 2020;

"In 2019, we gave 15 grants, to which 13 of the 15 projects are still live and operational. The grantees collectively raised $5.5M+ in financing with nearly 33+% of all grantees either going on to complete a fundraising round.

Some highlights include:

1. Zapper Finance raised $3M+ and most used dapp in DeFi
2. Gelato Finance raised $1.5M with future plans to DAOify
3. DAOhaus (raised 250k pre-seed) as a DAO
4. MetaFactory (100k+ revenue and launched $ROBOT)
5. Fantastic 12 (the team went to ship 88mph)
6. Mintbase (raised $1M seed fundraising round)
7. KnownOrigin (marketplace revenue 500% growth)
8. Sablier (acquired by Mainframe)
9. MetaGame (launched DAO and token market)
10. rDAI (v2 launching soon)
11. Kickback (now running digital events on xDAI)
12. Rocket NFT (shelved, Alex Masmej working on a new product now)
13. OneClickDApp (still operational)
14. Pepper4D (shelved)

In 2020, we also distributed a total of 15 grants, but with a focus on funding supporting early stage DAOs and directed our efforts towards supporting new teams emerging out of hackathons. Some highlights:

1. Signal DAO (early Collab land prototype, now with 30k+ DAUs)
2. Snapshot, light weight governance for DAOs
3. Overlay, long or shot DeFi data streams with leverage
4. Boardroom, governance aggregator (closed $2.2M funding)"

Usage

Projects that use or built on it

• From this blog (19-5-2020):

1. "Venture DAO’s successful launch as a legal DAO with~ $500k raised to date
2. Launch of RaidGuild — MetaCartel’s co-op dev shop with over 30 members working closely with prominent industry projects.
3. Rocket (NFT lending DAO), 50k in DAO membership stakes
4. MetaFactory’s Genesis Sale raising 30k among 42 unique buyers
5. MetaGame DAO soon to launch its bonding curve with $SEED using $20k in Gitcoin Grant funding
6. MetaClan launched an eSports DAO with 50 members in the first month.
7. MetaGammeDelta’s sorority DAO launched during ETHDenver and now has 20+ members and a community of 100+ women within the blockchain community.
8. 1Up World launching DAO-based gamified reputation
9. Orochi DAO launched by Kickback to host top-notch experiences as event afterparties.
10. DAOSaka created by KnowOrigin x MetaCartel as an NFT Art Commission DAO.
11. Fantastic 12 as a Discord DAO launcher (deployed during the Dragon Quest hackathon)
12. DAOHaus + Pokemol as the Moloch ecosystem’s choice of product tooling (over 100+ DAOs created with a MoM growth in DAOs)
13. Abridged as the DAO Ops platform, powering DAOs through chatbots and no-code tooling
14. DAOSquare as a means to spread the word about DAOs to a global audience"

MetaCartel Ventures (MCV)

Basics

• Launched (15-2-2020) on Ethereum mainnet:

"In tandem with the launch of the Grimoire, MetaCartel Ventures (also known as Ventures DAO) introduces a legally compliant framework for shareholders to make profit-focused investments including equity and token positions in early-stage startups.

During the initial summoning, MCV will support a select number of tokens including:

1. Maker DAI and SAI stablecoins (@MakerDAO)
2. MetaGame’s $SEED (@metafam)
3. Pet3rpan’s time tokens – $MAGIC
4. Ameen’s time tokens – $PEW
5. Axie Infinity Small Love Potions $SLP
6. Alex Masmej’s infamous $AML19 Loan

It’s likely that it will take a couple of months for non-accredited investors to be able to start actively participating (seeing as the DAO must first raise $5M in capital)"

• From Token Tuesdays (25-12-2019):

"MetaCartel recently announced a new arm called MetaCartel Ventures (MCV) - a for-profit DAO seeking to make larger investments in projects in exchange for future returns.

What makes MCV different from the grant-giving DAO is the inherent expectations for profits. Upon collecting more than $5M in funding, MCV will be able to allow non-accredited investors to participate and hold shares in the DAO so long as they are actively participating in the venture's daily operations. This structure is incredibly novel as it marks the first known use case of a distributed organization compliantly pooling funding and knowledge from a collective of both accredited and non-accredited investors.
Seeing as MetaCartel currently contains some of the most connected individuals in the space, it’s likely that MCV will be able to lead investments in some Ethereum’s most promising applications, making it an incredibly attractive notion for passive investors curious as to how they can put their blockchain-focused capital to good use.

While MetaCartel Ventures is not currently live, you can read up on its structure and plan of attack via the official whitepaper."

Investments

• BoardRoom. Participated in a $2.2M raise for BoardRoom (13-10-2020).
• MetaCoin. Is backing (11-5-2020) MetaCoin
• Zapper. Closed (3-7-2020) a $50k investment for Zapper. Participated in the $1.5M seed round, among many other participants (27-8-2020).

Team

• Adam Cochran; partner (29-4-2020)

Backers

• Is participating to get grants from Gitcoin Grants, as of the fourth round.
• Whole list can be seen here, one of which is Gnosis (as of 1-2020 on the website).
• Got backing from the Ethereum Foundation (10-2020).

Community Members

• Among their Ecosystem Community (1-2020) members are Moloch DAO, Gnosis, Mintbase, Opera, AdEx, OpenLaw, Binance, Stake Capital, Open Zeppelin, CoinFund, Dapper and Dune Analytics.
• Cooper Turley; contributor (according (as of 1-2020) to his own bio on his DeFi Rate)
• Axia Labs is one of the core contributors to MetaCartel DAO.
• Alex Masmejean, also co-founder of MarketingDAO and Rocket