I guess the phrase is “second time’s a charm.” Today we’re excited to announce our investment in MetaDAO. 

I met @metaproph3t this spring at @ThePortMiami — he was my desk neighbor. He told me he was “working on a futarchy project called MetaDAO,” and I confessed to him that I had heard of futarchy but didn’t really understand how it worked. He whipped out a notebook and drew a series of diagrams and graphs, patiently explaining to me the mechanism and why it was a new way of decision-making that would change everything. He refused to quit until I could demonstrate to him I grokked it.

As I’ve gotten to know Proph3t more and more over this year, I have been consistently blown away by two qualities of his that are usually in tension. First, he has an unbendable belief in what he’s building and why it matters. And second, he is highly adaptable, willing to challenge his own preconceived notions to execute on his vision.  

We can see these qualities on full display as the project has morphed from effectively a futarchy-as-a-service platform to a launchpad for ownership coins. As Proph3t has continued to iterate on how he achieves his vision, the project has moved closer and closer into the strike zone for our ownership thesis at Variant. It simply got to a point where we could not say no.

We believe the project is now well-positioned to offer users what they want: economic alignment with the projects they love. It does this through bolting in a series of anti-rug mechanisms for projects launching on the platform, such as putting all the funds into a market-governed treasury and having founders assign IP to a market-governed entity. We expect these differentiating features to attract investors, kicking off a flywheel that will make MetaDAO the best capital-formation mechanism onchain — founders will be drawn to tap into this capital, which will lead to more investors, and so on. This flywheel will continue to compound as some projects reach breakout success and show the viability of the model at scale. 

As a former founder and lawyer turned investor, it’s hard for me to express just how full circle this investment feels to me. MetaDAO, at its core, is part innovation in legal formation and part innovation in how founders raise capital and run a company. I could not be more excited to back @metaproph3t and @metanallok in their quest to build a fairer and more sustainable way to launch companies onchain.

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