DeepDAO secures $3M for expansion even as DAO treasuries halve in one month

DeepDAO, a website aggregating data on decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), has raised $3 million for future expansion in a round led by venture capital firms Hypersphere and DFG.

An announcement asserts the “overwhelming demand for DeepDAO’s seed round shows strong interest in data products for the DAO space and the belief the DAO ecosystem will grow.”

DeepDAO v1 currently provides data for more than 100 DAOs, aggregating data on organizations' treasuries, membership, and governance.

According to the site, DAOs currently represent more than 66,000 members and $587 million in assets under management (AUM) — although the AUM has fallen 46% from more than $1 billion in the past month amid the recent crypto market downtrend. DAO treasuries are still up more than 300% since early November however.

Speaking to Cointelegraph, DeepDAO founder and CEO, Eyal Eithcowich, predicts the total AUM of DAOs will exceed $10 billion in AUM and represent more than one million users by the end of 2021. 

Founding advisor to DeepDAO and Bitfwd Capital chairman, Daniel Bar stated the team plans to expand data coverage, integrate DAOs from additional networks, and launch new governance tools using the funds. Bar also noted the platform will offer an enhanced user experience, including social feeds and forums, stating:

“The decentralized governance space is developing at a breakneck speed, DeepDAO is serving [...] the DAO space by providing a one stop shop where governance can be tracked.”

"We're committed to listing all these governance systems across multiple chains and platforms, explore and analyze them as one large ecosystem, and provide social features and services to enable a transparent and active community," added Eithcowich.

Despite the rapid growth of DAOs over the past year, Bar notes a number of challenges facing the nascent sector, including identity, standardization, and a steep learning curve.

“Most people still think of DAOs as a nebulous concept, the ‘Aha moment’ that DAOs are Web3’s social network didn’t click to most people yet. But it’s getting closer,” Bar said.

Hypersphere partner, Jack Platts, described the DeepDAO platform as making decentralized governance “easily accessible to everyone,” stating:

“Decentralized protocols are governed by their users, but to unlock the transparency and inclusivity we need high quality tools.”