Entrepreneurs Alex Taub and Michael Schonfeld once built software tools for the social media boom. Now they’re hoping to provide the plumbing for a new one in the Wild West Upstream, the no-code platform where anyone can start and run their own DAO, has raised $12.5 million in Series A funding led by existing investor boldstart ventures with participation from existing investor Ibex Investors and new investors including Tiger Global, Vayner Fund, Fenbushi Capital, Panoramic Ventures, Alpaca VC, Human Ventures, Blumberg Capital, The Medici Group, and more. The new funding, which brings Upstream to a total of $15.75 million raised, will go toward scaling their all-in-one DAO platform, Upstream Collectives, officially opening up to the public today.of Web3.
Upstream Collectives bring together the key elements of a DAO including treasury, voting, governance, token gating, group chat, delegation of votes, and a wallet into one cohesive experience. It’s the only DAO platform to let members vote on mobile, and it’s free for anyone to create a DAO. Since launching its closed beta in November 2021, Upstream Collectives has amassed more than $2 million in assets.
The DAO market today is estimated to be worth $10 billion and has the potential to grow to $250 billion by 2027. DAOs are Web3 communities that enable decentralized ownership for social communities, corporate governance, NFT projects, investment funds, and more. Currently, the DAO user experience is fragmented across disparate tools like Discord, Snapshot, Collab.Land, Aragon, and more. This fragmentation creates a disorganized user experience and a high barrier to entry for anyone new to Web3.
“We believe Upstream will be the de facto platform to build and manage DAOs, supporting the infrastructure for Web3 communities,” said Eliot Durbin at boldstart ventures. “Upstream is doing for DAOs what Squarespace and Wix did for websites and Shopify did for eCommerce. By making it simple for anyone to launch DAO, Upstream will open up Web3 to new audiences and power the future of decentralized community ownership.”
Upstream is cofounded by Alex Taub and Michael Schonfeld who cofounded and sold social analytics platform SocialRank. Prior to SocialRank, Alex and Michael met while working at Dwolla in 2012, an early entrant in the cryptocurrency space.
“This new funding will help us scale our no-code DAO platform,” said Alex Taub, Co-Founder of Upstream. “By making it easy to start and manage a DAO, we’re helping make Web3 more accessible so that anyone and everyone can use it.”