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Crypto DAO investors: 15 on NAUT, 4 hold 81% of rounds

By NAUT Research · · 7 min read

15 Crypto DAO investors venture DAO rows on NAUT, on file for 161 backed rounds across 137 companies. Logos: CSP DAO, The LAO, dao5, DuckDAO, Orange DAO, AngelDAO, FlamingoDAO, Punk DAO, Seed Club Ventures, Avocado DAO, DAO Jones, HoneyDao.

NAUT tracks 15 crypto DAO investors, meaning venture DAOs and investment collectives that describe themselves that way and carry at least 1 live backed round, and their records hold 161 round rows across 137 distinct companies, read on 4 November 2026. Those rows disclose $1,138.2M of round size in 158 of the 161 cases, and 4 DAOs (CSP DAO, The LAO, dao5 and DuckDAO) account for 131 of the 161 rows, 81% of the list.

How this list was built, read on 4 November 2026: NAUT's investor records surfaced 23 candidate DAO rows, 19 of which carry at least 1 live backed round. Each of the 19 descriptions was then read against the title of this list, and 4 came out: 0xVentures (its own description calls it a venture group of builders and users), Snackclub (a gaming and blockchain community running events and tournaments), VC3 Labs (a decentralized asset management platform) and W3GG (a Web3 gaming ecosystem and launchpad). That leaves the 15 below. Every count here is taken from the round rows on each investor's record, not from the stored summary field: NAUT's stored portfolio count is lower than the round rows for dao5 (28 against 29), DuckDAO (1 against 22) and W3GG (1 against 2), and those 3 gaps have been reported for a database fix.

Crypto DAO investors: which 15 rows does NAUT track?

These are the 15, ranked by the number of backed round rows each one carries on NAUT. The disclosed total sums the size of the rounds the row appears in, so it is the money that went into those companies, and NAUT holds no figure for what each DAO itself put in.

DAO investor Round rows Disclosed
44 $200.9M across 43 rows
36 $275.9M across 36 rows
29 $387.3M across 29 rows
22 $79.4M across 22 rows
8 $28.6M across 7 rows
4 $19.3M across 4 rows
3 $38.0M across 2 rows
3 $23.0M across 3 rows
3 $23.3M across 3 rows
2 $22.0M across 2 rows
2 $19.0M across 2 rows
2 $5.5M across 2 rows
1 $5.0M across 1 row
1 $5.5M across 1 row
1 $5.5M across 1 row

Row counts and company counts differ for only 3 of the 15: The LAO (36 rows, 33 companies), dao5 (29 and 26) and Frens Syndicate x VC DAO (2 and 1). Every other row backed a different company each time.

Here is what each one is on record as backing, up to 3 named companies per row:

DAO investor Named backings
, ,
, ,
, ,
, ,
, ,
, ,
,
, ,
, ,
,
,
, twice

The round sizes on these rows run from $0.7M to $42.0M, with a median of $4.3M, so this is early-stage money: the largest 2 rows are Berachain's $42.0M Series A on dao5's record and a $42.0M cumulative private round for Recall Network on The LAO's.

How many rounds do these crypto DAO investors appear in?

Backed round rows on NAUT, per DAO investor
  1. CSP DAO44
  2. The LAO36
  3. dao529
  4. DuckDAO22
  5. Orange DAO8
  6. AngelDAO4
  7. FlamingoDAO3
  8. Punk DAO3
  9. Seed Club Ventures3
  10. Avocado DAO2
  11. DAO Jones2
  12. Frens Syndicate x VC DAO2
  13. HoneyDao1
  14. Neptune DAO1
  15. Wagmi33 Foundation1

The chart is the same ranking as the table: 4 rows carry 20 or more backings and 6 rows carry 1 or 2, so a founder writing to this group is writing to 4 active desks and 11 occasional ones. 116 of the 161 rows carry an announcement date, running from 2020 to 2026, and 61 of those sit in 2021. None of the 161 rows is flagged as a lead investment on NAUT's record, which is a statement about what NAUT holds for these rounds.

Which companies did more than 1 of these DAOs back?

9 of the 137 companies carry 2 or more of these 15 DAO rows, and they are the clearest signal in the data: a company here was syndicated through several DAO treasuries at the same stage. Lens Protocol carries 5 of the DAO rows, more than any other company, and it sits outside the count of 9 because the outside check on its seed round disagreed with 1 of those 5 rows. The round column is the round NAUT holds those DAO rows on.

Company DAO rows Which DAOs Round
4 , , , $4.0M seed
3 , , $5.5M seed
3 , , $4.3M seed
2 , $5.0M seed
2 , $3.8M funding round
2 , $2.1M private round
2 , $5.5M private round
2 , $2.5M private round
2 , $5.0M funding round

CSP DAO and DuckDAO share 4 of these 9 companies, the strongest pairing in the set. The Intuition Systems row is the 1 shared-company record whose outside source was located and read: an ICOdrops page from 15 June 2023 lists "Seed investors: ConsenSys, The Lao, DAO Jones, Punk DAO, Orange DAO, Superscrypt and others", which names all 4 DAOs NAUT holds on that round, and that round also had named backers beyond the DAOs.

What sectors do these DAO venture funds back?

Sector tags sit on the company, so this counts the 137 companies once each, and each share below is of those 137. 20 of the 137 carry no sector tag on NAUT.

Sector tag Companies Share
DeFi 40 29%
Infrastructure 25 18%
AI 21 15%
L1/2/3 20 15%
Gaming 14 10%
RWA 10 7%
Privacy 9 7%
DEX (Decentralized Exchange) 8 6%

A company can carry several tags, so the column adds past 137. DeFi leads by a wide margin, which matches what these treasuries say they do: HoneyDao and Neptune DAO both describe themselves as DeFi collectives, and their only rows here are Guru Network and Debridge.

What this tells a BD team

  • The addressable list is short: 4 rows (CSP DAO, The LAO, dao5, DuckDAO) hold 131 of the 161 backings, so 4 investor pages cover 81% of the deal history.
  • Co-investor mapping works best on the 9 shared companies: CSP DAO and DuckDAO appear together on 4 of them, so a warm path into 1 reaches the other.
  • Check size is the qualifier, not the brand: a median round of $4.3M and a top round of $42.0M means these are seed and private-round tickets.
  • 0 of the 161 rows carry a lead flag on NAUT's record, so treat each DAO as a syndicate member and find the round's other named backers on the company page before you write.
How a BD team can work the 15 DAO rows
  1. Open the 4 big rows firstCSP DAO, The LAO, dao5 and DuckDAO carry 131 of the 161 backings.
  2. Pull the shared companiesThe 9 companies with 2 or more DAO rows, from Intuition Systems at 4 rows down, show who syndicates with whom.
  3. Pick the sector40 of the 137 companies are tagged DeFi and 21 AI, so sort your pitch list by the tag that matches your product.
  4. Find the peopleEach investor and company page lists its team and the channels NAUT holds for them.

What this tells a founder raising from crypto DAO investors

  • Size the ask to the data: 158 of 161 rows disclose an amount, the median is $4.3M and only 2 rows reach $42.0M.
  • 11 of the 15 rows carry 8 or fewer backings, so a single-check DAO is the normal case, and Frens Syndicate x VC DAO is the 1 row that backed the same company (ZKX) twice.
  • Gaming and consumer rows are a separate group: Avocado DAO carries Thetanuts Finance and Sonic, and 14 of the 137 companies are tagged Gaming.
  • DAO-backed startups usually sit in a syndicate, so name the co-investors you already have: 9 companies here carry 2 or more DAO rows.
How a founder can approach a venture DAO
  1. Match the stageA median round of $4.3M on 158 disclosed rows means pre-seed to Series A, with $42.0M as the ceiling.
  2. Match the thesisdao5 carries Berachain and Movement, Seed Club Ventures carries Puffpaw and inference_labs.
  3. Bring a syndicateDebridge took 3 DAO rows in 1 $5.5M seed, so line up 2 or 3 at once.
  4. Open the channelEach DAO's NAUT page carries its verified X handle and the people NAUT holds for it.

What was checked outside NAUT

22 outside checks were run for this article on 4 November 2026, and they are the only claims here that rest on a page other than NAUT's own record.

  • 18 were X handle checks against the live account and a second page. 15 of those cover the 15 rows in the table above, and all 15 matched the handle NAUT stores, down to the account behind a different letter case (@TheLAOOfficial for The LAO, @OrangeDAOxyz for Orange DAO, @ThePunkDAO for Punk DAO). The other 3 cover firms that came out of the list.
  • 4 were shared-company checks. 1 (Intuition Systems) had its quote located on the source page and is quoted above. 2 (Debridge and ZKX) came back confirmed, but the quote could not be located on the fetched page, so those 2 rows stand on NAUT's record alone here. 1 (Lens Protocol) came back contradicted on the number of DAO backers, which is why it is left out of the count of 9.
  • That leaves 133 of the 137 companies with no outside check in this article. Their round rows are NAUT's record, each carrying the source URL the record was built from.

Related reading on NAUT: Corporate crypto investors: 16 funds of 98 NAUT tags Corporate and Crypto angel investors: 43 names on 13 rounds, 20 at Jeeves.

Can you pull this data through the NAUT API?

Yes. The fund list behind this article comes back from GET https://api.naut.so/v1/investors?q=dao&sort=portfolio, and 1 row with its team and every portfolio line (company, roundType, amountUsd, announceDate, isLead) comes from GET https://api.naut.so/v1/investors/csp-dao, both with Authorization: Bearer $NAUT_KEY. Each data call costs 5 credits, so the 15 rows here are 16 calls and 80 credits; the parameters are in the API docs and the credit bundles start at $49 a month for 3,000 credits on NAUT pricing. Verified Telegram, email and LinkedIn for the people at these DAOs and their portfolio companies unlock on any paid NAUT plan, so start a 7-day trial if you need the channels as well as the rounds.

Crypto DAO investors FAQ

Which DAOs invest in crypto startups?

On NAUT, read on 4 November 2026, 15 DAO-type investors carry at least 1 live backed round: CSP DAO, The LAO, dao5, DuckDAO, Orange DAO, AngelDAO, FlamingoDAO, Punk DAO, Seed Club Ventures, Avocado DAO, DAO Jones, Frens Syndicate x VC DAO, HoneyDao, Neptune DAO and Wagmi33 Foundation.

How many rounds do crypto DAO investors appear in on NAUT?

Those 15 rows hold 161 backed round records across 137 distinct companies, with $1,138.2M of round size disclosed on 158 of the 161 rows, a median round of $4.3M and a largest round of $42.0M.

Do these DAO venture funds lead rounds?

0 of the 161 round rows on NAUT is flagged as a lead investment for these 15 DAOs, so on NAUT's record they appear as syndicate members rather than price setters, and each company page names the other backers NAUT holds for the same round.

Which companies took money from more than 1 DAO?

9 of the 137 companies carry 2 or more of these DAO rows, led by Intuition Systems with 4 (DAO Jones, Orange DAO, Punk DAO and The LAO) on a $4.0M seed, then Debridge and ZKX with 3 each.

Where can I find these crypto DAO investors and the people behind them?

NAUT holds a page for each of the 15 DAOs with its portfolio rounds, its team and its verified X handle, and the same data comes through GET https://api.naut.so/v1/investors/csp-dao at 5 credits a call. Verified Telegram, email and LinkedIn unlock on any paid NAUT plan, so start a 7-day trial to open the channels for the 137 portfolio companies as well.

Sources

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