dao5 Research
Investment Thesis
dao5 is an experimental cryptocurrency investment firm founded in 2022 by Tekin Salimi, a former corporate lawyer and Polychain Capital general partner. It runs as a traditional venture fund today, with a stated plan to convert into a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). On conversion it would issue DAO5 tokens to its investment team, advisors and portfolio founders, and move a large share of the general partner's assets into an on-chain treasury governed by tokenholders. The name puts "DAO" first on purpose: the firm assembles people first and lets governance set the mission later.
The firm's public principles are incentive alignment (portfolio founders receive a grant of future DAO5 tokens), meritocracy, privacy (it backs pseudonymous founders and avoids surveillance technology), a small governance circle in the spirit of Dunbar's number, and a preference for simplicity and decentralization.
Current Focus
Per Fortune and CoinDesk coverage of the $222M second fund (May 2025), the current focus is institutional and government adoption of blockchain: stablecoins, tokenization and state-sovereign AI. Salimi told Fortune that "the less sexy products are now more important." Earlier vintages centered on foundational protocols, modular and application-specific infrastructure, and the crypto and decentralized AI intersection (Bittensor, EigenLayer, Story Protocol, 0G Labs).
dao5 now runs several strategies besides venture: liquid investing (rebalanced toward large-cap assets like Bitcoin and Solana in early 2025), treasury bill provisioning, lending, and incubation. In December 2024 it launched the tao5 incubator for Bittensor subnets and bought the network's third-largest validator from OWL Ventures.
Stage Focus
Seed and pre-seed are the core. The firm led Berachain's seed round even though all three founders were anonymous. Tracxn counts 32 seed entries, 13 Series A entries and 2 post-IPO entries across 48 companies. It also takes later positions, for example in public-company vehicles such as Greenlane and CEA Industries.
Check Size
Not disclosed. Tracxn gives an average seed round size of $10.1M and an average Series A round size of $17.8M, which are whole-round figures, not dao5's own checks. Check size fields are left blank.
Lead Tendency
Mixed. dao5 led Berachain's seed and led Spicenet's $5M Series A (October 2026), and it appears as a participant in many rounds led by others (Polychain, a16z crypto, 1kx, Hack VC). Recorded as both.
Recent Activity
- October 2026: led Spicenet's $5M Series A (Babylon and Astrarizon also participated); total funding $8M.
- April 2026: participated in Cluster Protocol's Series A.
- November 2025: Seismic Systems Series A follow-on alongside a16z crypto.
- May 2025: closed the $222M Fund II, concentrated in about 15 LPs, mostly family offices and high net worth individuals. George Lambeth, a Fund I LP, joined as general partner.
- Fund I ($125M, 2022 vintage) is fully deployed and has returned 1x DPI.
- Activity has slowed: Tracxn counts 24 investments in 2024, 6 in 2025 and 1 in early 2026.
Portfolio Highlights
Berachain (reached unicorn status in 2024), Bittensor, EigenLayer, Story Protocol, Movement Labs, 0G Labs, Fhenix, Layer N, EthStorage, Seismic Systems, Camp Network, Cluster Protocol, Spicenet, Bitquery and Shogun. Exits include Light Protocol (acquired June 2026), Sunscreen (acquired by Fhenix, July 2026) and AlloyX (acquired September 2025). Public holdings include Greenlane and CEA Industries (both on Nasdaq). Polychain is the most frequent co-investor (15 companies).
Team
- Tekin Salimi, Founder and Managing Partner. Former Polychain general partner (2017 to 2022), previously a corporate lawyer at Torys LLP; grew up in Toronto.
- George Lambeth, General Partner. Crypto angel investor and former Fund I LP, joined in 2025.
- Sia Khazamipour, Head of Platform.
Tracxn lists a team of about 9, including 2 partners in the US and UAE.
Decision Process
Partnership with a strong founder-led core. Salimi has said governance will be decentralized gradually, with a leadership core first. Intros are not documented as required.
Founder Preferences
Highly technical teams, pseudonymous founders welcome, and researchers and builders with whom dao5 can build multi-cycle relationships. Salimi describes his role with early founders as everything from investor to close friend to therapist.
Geographic Focus
Global and crypto-native. By first-round count, 28 of the investments are in US-based companies, followed by Singapore (4), Cayman Islands (3), British Virgin Islands (2) and UAE (2).
Gaps
The homepage and collections page are an art and merchandise site (candle, soap, tee) with no portfolio, team or thesis text. Facts here come from Fortune, CoinDesk, IQ.wiki, Tracxn, VC Sheet and a podcast transcript. Crunchbase was blocked. Portfolio company domains and investment stages were not verified and are left blank.