dao5 is an experimental venture capital firm founded in 2022 by Tekin Salimi, a former General Partner at Polychain Capital. Based in the British Virgin Islands, dao5 was created to reimagine the future of investing in crypto by merging early-stage venture capital with long-term decentralized governance. The firm operates with a distinct vision of transitioning into a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), with plans to convert the fund into a fully tokenized, on-chain governed entity. dao5 is known for backing foundational crypto protocols and emerging companies that push the boundaries of blockchain innovation.
dao5 focuses on early-stage investments in crypto protocols, infrastructure, and foundational Web3 companies. The firm targets projects that prioritize decentralization, novel consensus mechanisms, token-driven economies, and next-gen crypto infrastructure.
It is particularly aligned with teams building in the Bittensor ecosystem and decentralized compute and network layers, including tools for coordination, governance, and interoperability. dao5 also selectively incubates projects internally that align with its ecosystem thesis.
In May 2025, dao5 closed its second fund with $222 million in committed capital. The fund builds on the firm’s crypto-native thesis by doubling down on early-stage protocols and developer-centric platforms. dao5 Fund II continues to emphasize ecosystem formation, with a focus on backing protocols before they reach liquidity events.
A portion of Fund II is earmarked for ecosystem support through tao5, an incubator specifically for early-stage subnets on the Bittensor network. The fund also includes a unique long-term structure - upon conversion to a DAO, tokenized ownership and treasury governance will be transferred to stakeholders, including portfolio founders, fund managers, and advisors. dao5’s vision for Fund II positions it as both investor and network builder in crypto’s evolving landscape.
Leadership
dao5 was founded by Tekin Salimi, who brings deep domain expertise from his tenure at Polychain Capital. The leadership team also includes George Lambeth (General Partner), Sia Khazamipour (Head of Operations), Sean Koons (Creator-in-Residence), and George Lambeth (Entrepreneur-in-Residence).
The fund’s advisors include prominent figures from the blockchain and academic worlds such as Emin Gün Sirer (Ava Labs), Ben Fisch (Espresso Systems), and Meltem Demirors (CoinShares), among others.
Investment Strategy
dao5 invests in teams at the earliest stages, often before the product is fully live or tokenized. The firm operates with an incubation mindset and takes a highly thesis-driven approach - favoring protocols with strong community alignment, open governance roadmaps, and potential for long-term ecosystem scale.
dao5 supports projects through capital, tokenomics structuring, ecosystem design, and access to its advisory network. Its planned transition to a DAO introduces a novel, post-fund lifecycle model that is designed to align incentives among builders and investors over decades rather than years.
Notable Investments
dao5’s portfolio includes early investments in notable projects such as Bittensor, a decentralized machine learning network; Berachain, a high-performance EVM-compatible blockchain; EigenLayer, a restaking protocol; Story Protocol, focused on decentralized IP infrastructure; and Movement Labs, building execution layers for modular blockchain stacks.
