Establish the Lisk DAO Fund and cover 2026 budget

Proposals General
1

Executive summary
This proposal funds the incorporation and first year of operations of the Lisk DAO Fund, a dedicated vehicle to accelerate leading teams in the Lisk ecosystem and provide upside potential for the Lisk Treasury.

The Lisk DAO Fund aligns with the most recent Lisk strategy and the evolving needs of the Lisk ecosystem. The Lisk DAO Fund aims to replace a significant part of the seasonal Lisk DAO spending by converting all accelerator and incubator grants into Lisk DAO investments for the coming two years.

The total request for the first year of Lisk DAO Fund 1 (2026) is 4,000,000 LSK, of which 3,550,000 is projected to be invested into Lisk partner program graduates and high-potential onchain start-ups. A second Lisk DAO Fund 1 proposal of comparable size is expected to be submitted at the end of 2026 to cover the second half of the lifecycle of the Lisk DAO Fund 1.

Motivation

The Lisk DAO Fund 1 will be established to increase Lisk’s ability to attract, empower, and accelerate the best teams building onchain solutions, especially in high-growth markets, in a way that provides upside to the Lisk Ecosystem. It replaces the traditional graduate grants with investments that provide upside to the Lisk ecosystem and treasury.

Rationale

Lisk DAO Fund 1 leverages the existing momentum and strong network of Lisk-aligned incubators and accelerators to identify and support top builders. Historically, Lisk and the Lisk DAO have issued grants to graduates of these partner programs to help them launch and grow within the Lisk ecosystem.

As these programs continue to deliver tangible results and high-potential startups, we believe the next logical step is to establish a structure that allows both Lisk and the Lisk Treasury to benefit from the success of these startups. Lisk DAO Fund 1 will invest in these projects on favorable terms, creating financial upside for the Lisk Treasury.

By replacing graduate grants with strategic investments, the Lisk Treasury can capture value from the most promising builders in and around the Lisk ecosystem.

Specification

Lisk DAO Fund 1 will have the following scope:

Target Fund Size and Duration
Total allocation: Approximately 2M USD
Deployment horizon: 18-24 months

Instruments
The Lisk DAO Fund will deploy capital using early-stage investment instruments:
- SAFE (Simple Agreement for Future Equity)
- SAFT (Simple Agreement for Future Tokens)

Target Audience and Eligibility
Primary target: Graduates from Lisk-aligned incubation and acceleration programs, Onchain developers, fintech integrations, and real-world solution providers.
Geographic scope: Emphasis on Emerging Markets (Africa, LATAM, SEA).
Minimum maturity stage: MVP
Ecosystem alignment: Needs to have an active dApp on Lisk or graduated from a Lisk-ecosystem program.

Check Size and Staging

  • Ranging from $25-50K USD in upfront funding.
  • Follow-up rounds of up to $50K based on KPIs.

Governance and Decision-Making

  • Investment Committee, with oversight by Fund Manager and Advisors, will make investment decisions. All decisions are to be tracked and communicated where operationally possible.
  • Lisk Governance continues to have oversight and can, with a notice of 3 months, decide to pause fund allocations and recall its unallocated funds.

Success Metrics (KPIs)

  • Number of funded projects and survival rate.
  • Relative impact on ecosystem growth by Lisk Eco funded companies (txs, devs, users)
  • The value of all funding proceeds, both in equity/tokens and stables/LSK, returned to LiskDAO at Fund Maturity or when successful exits..

Operations
The Fund will be managed by Symphony, a dedicated digital asset management firm for Ecosystem Funds, founded by the team behind Superchain Eco and led by Luuk Weber, who previously operated a DeFi fund from the Amsterdam Stock Exchange and has 9+ years of experience in Web3.

The Lisk DAO Fund will operate through a legal wrapper in a to-be-defined Jurisdiction and set up in a way that continues to provide Lisk DAO Governance influence in its operation and direction.

2026 Budget

Item Description Budget
Direct Project Investments Deployed as investments into high-potential projects in the Lisk ecosystem. 3,55M LSK
Management Costs Costs to administer and manage the Lisk DAO Fund, charged in yearly installments on November 1st. 450K LSK

Returns for LiskDAO
During the harvest/divestment period, projected to start approximately two years after starting Lisk DAO Fund 1, or whenever the Lisk DAO Fund exits a position worth more than $50K, the proceeds will be used to market buy and burn LSK - reducing the circulating and max supply, minus a 20% carry fee charge on the net profits, which is vested over a period of six years to ensure long-term alignment and commitment from all partiers involved.

Example: Suppose the Lisk DAO Fund invests $25K in a project. After twelve months, the project launches a token on Lisk at a valuation four times higher than the initial investment.

The Investment Committee decides to fully exit the position, generating $100K in proceeds for the Lisk DAO Fund. This represents a net profit of $75K.

On this profit, the fund charges a 20% carry ($15K). After deducting the carry, $85K is used to market buy LSK which is then burned by sending it to 0x000000000000000000000000000000000000dead, the most used burn address in the EVM space.

Management Costs Breakdown

Item Cost
Legal and Admin Fees $15K
Fund Manager $45K
Investment Manager $25K
Analyst $10K
Comms, Marketing $10K
Misc and Buffer $10K

Investment Committee Members
The Lisk DAO Fund 1 team balances capital deployment discipline with ecosystem-building know-how to serve both as an investor and growth engine.

Role Description Person
Fund Manager Sets investment strategy, priorities, and alignment with LiskDAO goals Luuk
Investment Manager Sources deals, performs due diligence, and manages pipelines. Handles fund administration, reporting, and transparency. Jash
Analyst / Ops Prepares data-driven investment memos and tracks KPIs. Chris
Advisor Provide deal review, mentorship, and credibility Lisk / EMpower partner
Revolving Advisor Provide deal review, mentorship, and credibility Incubator / Partner
Revolving Advisor Provide deal review, mentorship, and credibility Lisk Delegate
7 Likes
2

Is this part of the $15M EMpower fund? or is this a separate DAO initiative?

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4

Hi @przemer, this is a separate DAO initiative that aims to keep the DAO aligned with the latest Lisk direction and provide the Lisk Treasury and LSK direct upside.

As described in the proposal, we believe the best way for the Lisk Treasury and LSK to benefit from the current commitments and direction of Lisk (as outlined in theEMpower Fund announcement and overall Lisk platform) is to double down on the vision of Lisk as a Growth Platform for Emerging Market Founders.

The Lisk DAO fund would 1) Replace the current Lisk incubator graduation grants with investments and 2) Invest in a handful of additional Lisk native projects - both providing significant upside potential to the Lisk Treasury.

As noted in the proposal, the Lisk DAO Fund would like to have at least one Lisk Delegate as part of the team of advisors. We would love to discuss this proposal with you and other delegates.

We propose to host a meeting sometime this week to discuss and get Delegate perspectives. Would Wednesday or Thursday at 11 AM EST or 2 PM EST work for you? We’re keen to have other delegates also join the call.

5

Hi, SuperchainEco keep deleting honest posts without any warnings etc. with disclaimer that this was only my personal opinion. Congratz…

6

Hi @superchaineco, I agree the VC style is a better approach than the current one. But the critical part is still the project selection. Otherwise there is pretty much no difference. I know you’re trying your best to select the best of them, but the risk is always on the community side. Symphony doesn’t risk much, same as the committee, so you need to understand the community’s point of view.

Thanks for the invitation. I most likely won’t be striving for the advisory role. I just can’t guarantee I can spend enough time to evaluate projects that would justify taking $ compensation for it. Maybe @Grumlin is willing to do it. He has the most skin in the game. That said, I’m always available for any input the DAO needs, here or directly on Discord.

As for the calls, maybe it’s a good idea to make them more open for the community, in an X/Twitter Spaces style, so anyone can join and they can be recorded if someone can’t attend. I’m just not a fan of those “closed” meetings, and in the future you can invite projects so they can pitch themselves. Also I would rather see any discussion happening here, so anyone can read it at their leisure.

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7

What discussion are you talking about? The DAO deletes everything and everyone who says something wrong. How do you imagine having a fruitful discussion under such a threat? Maybe they won’t ban you because you’re the top 1 delegate. Here, the DAO talks to itself, setting rules that it can bend and change however it wants. The community has absolutely no say here, let alone any influence on the decisions being made. Let’s be honest, it’s been like that here since this forum was created. They killed their own community on Discord by banning everyone who said anything negative about their project. How do you imagine that? They have only themselves to blame. Remind me of even one case where the community actually influenced any decision in this project.

8

Hi @wasabbi we don’t play a role in the Discord, nor are we the only mods on the forum. However, we will flag any comments that is not on topic - if you want to raise a flag about for example the Discord banning you bring up or your perspective on community involvement please start a seperate thread for that.

Here we want to keep the conversation focused on starting or not starting a Lisk DAO fund.

9

Thanks for the quick and honest feedback. I completely agree that project sourcing and selection are critical.

When it comes to sourcing, Lisk’s collaboration with our incubation partners has been instrumental in generating a steady inflow of vetted, high-quality founders from underrepresented regions. The Lisk DAO Fund would have the opportunity to back the strongest teams — roughly 20–40% of program graduates — giving the DAO access to unique, early-stage investment opportunities.

Our experience running multiple programs across the EVM ecosystem, combined with prior fund management experience, equips us with the expertise to evaluate, select, and support the most promising teams. Importantly, our incentives are fully aligned: a portion of our compensation comes from carry fees, which we only earn when projects generate returns for Lisk’s Treasury. In addition, both our program’s success and future proposals depend on LSK’s performance, which we are highly motivated to strengthen (we also have over 55K LSK staked ourselves).

Our team (and Lisk) will handle the groundwork — project reviews, due diligence, and reporting on potential investments — but we’d greatly value your perspective as part of the Investment Committee. We’re open to holding the call publicly, though we want to ensure that the right stakeholders — those with context and skin in the game — have enough time to share meaningful input. From experience, fully open calls can sometimes become unstructured, leaving key voices unheard.

Happy to continue the discussion here in the thread, or we could host a Twitter Space if you and other delegates can join. Would Thursday work for you?

10

What did Luuk do to be chosen as Fund Manager? For 45K dollars per year I can do better than him (as my full-time job) and make sure that those Funds won’t go to scam projects. I just wonder on what basis did you choose these people? They haven’t proven their effectiveness but rather failed in the past. Of course they will give you <3 for this post because it’s easy money for them.

11

If that’s ok, I would like to continue here :blush:, but if other members think it’s better to join the spaces and can articulate better there, I won’t be opposing that.

Going back to the proposal, what if the majority of the potential earnings were used to buy back LSK from the market and removed from circulation (burned)? That would offset some of the selling pressure the new tokens create. Also is the carry fee negotiable? can we reduce it to 20% for example?

2 Likes
12

Great, writing in the forum is also our preferred way of communication to keep it streamlined and open!

  • Using profits to buy back and burn LSK: this was also one of our preferred directions. In our initial draft, we mentioned returning it to the Treasury to let Governance decide what to do with profits; however, buying back and burning LSK is a great and straightforward option. We’re in favor of doing this and have updated the draft.

  • Reducing the carry from 25 to 20 percent:** I’ve discussed with the team, and we’re okay to reduce the carry to 20% for this initial Lisk DAO Fund. We believe even at 20 percent, there is enough of an incentive for our team to go above and beyond to curate and support the best teams. I’ve reduced the carry to 20% and updated the example calculation in the draft.

Thanks for the great input. Are there any remaining elements of the proposal you feel need iteration?

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14

Hello @SuperchainEco,
I have genuine concerns for the members of the investment committee.

Some of the key members here, for instance @Jashdotfi and @LuukDAO are part of the @SuperchainEco and are also part of the DAO grant council and steering committee.

Considering the workload from the @SuperchainEco, the Lisk DAO and also some key projects currently being executed by the same team (eg: Lisk Surge), I’m concerned about the burden of work and the effects it might have on the team’s effectiveness across board.

1 Like
15

Hi @Jujuboy

The Lisk DAO fund can be seen as an evolution of Lisk DAO, as a significant share of its budget and responsibilities are shifting from solely issuing grants to primarily making investments, as we believe this approach will have a bigger impact on the Lisk ecosystem and drive better ROI.

For Season 1, most operations are already streamlined, with 75% of the Grants budget allocated and sufficient applications in the pipeline to fulfill H2 commitments. The core Lisk Surge work (communications plan, incentive review, and allocation plan) is largely complete, leaving only finalization tasks. This allows each Lisk DAO team member to dedicate ample time to the Lisk DAO Fund initiative, now and going forward.

Looking ahead, we expect the Steering Committee’s role in 2026 to evolve into an ecosystem-wide function, guiding both Lisk and Lisk DAO. Key stakeholders and delegates will collaborate to refine and ratify strategy and proposals.

Luuk will likely focus solely on managing the Lisk DAO Fund, with possible input into ecosystem steering.

Jash is expected to remain Grants Lead for another season, having built an efficient workflow. However, with grants playing a smaller role, we no longer foresee the need for a Lisk core member’s direct involvement, opening an additional Grant Council seat alongside Jash and Ibrahim. His role as Grant Lead is synergistic to his support to the Lisk DAO Fund, as he’ll have a deep understanding of the ecosystem and inflow of talent / projects.

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16

Thanks @SuperchainEco for the clarification.

Could you also share details on how DAO management might change if/when the DAO Fund becomes active. Can we expect active delegates to gradually transition into key operations/management responsibilities moving forward?

1 Like
17

Yes, we see a lot of value in having active delegates take on more responsibility, either in actively shaping the ecosystem strategy, but also taking on roles in, for example, the Grants Council.

We see a lot of value in creating paths for individual talent and impactful teams, especially from Emerging Market regions, to contribute to Lisk, help it grow, and benefit.

1 Like
18

Hey,
the proposal is already live and the voting period on Tally closes in a week - don’t forget to vote on time :slight_smile:

2 Likes