DAOs, VCs Put $6M Behind Governance Startup Tally

If DAOs are basically a "group chat with a bank account," they're going to need more tooling to go mainstream, say Tally's founders.

AccessTimeIconAug 12, 2021 at 3:33 p.m. UTC
Updated May 9, 2023 at 3:22 a.m. UTC
10 Years of Decentralizing the Future
May 29-31, 2024 - Austin, TexasThe biggest and most established global hub for everything crypto, blockchain and Web3.Register Now

Tally, a platform that builds governance infrastructure for decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), announced Thursday it raised $6 million in a funding round led by Blockchain Capital and Placeholder.

But the round wasn’t entirely funded by venture capital.

  • How NEAR Enables Multichain Access From One Account
    00:56
    How NEAR Enables Multichain Access From One Account
  • Why the NEAR foundation Chose Eigenlayer as a Security Partner
    00:54
    Why the NEAR foundation Chose Eigenlayer as a Security Partner
  • Three Crypto Predictions in 2024
    02:07
    Three Crypto Predictions in 2024
  • Crypto Market Leaders and Laggards in 2023
    01:50
    Crypto Market Leaders and Laggards in 2023
  • Tally’s co-founder and CEO, Dennison Bertram, told CoinDesk that approximately 25% of the funding came from DAOs themselves including The LAO, MetaCartel Ventures and Fire Eyes DAO, as well as DAO-affiliated angel investors, including Ryan Sean Adams, the founder of Bankless. 

    DAOs – which Tally CTO and co-founder Rafael Solari describes as essentially a “group chat with a bank account” – are exploding in popularity as decentralized finance (DeFi) continues to gain momentum. 

    DAO members band together, share assets and make decisions as a group, which can look like anything from a decentralized company with revenue and payroll and products, to a group of people pooling money together to buy a CryptoPunk

    Up until this point, the governance infrastructure for DAOs has been relatively bootstrapped, but Tally’s co-founders believe that for DAOs to go mainstream they need a way to overcome the structural growing pains that many DAOs have experienced. 

    Tally’s platform offers DAOs voting structure and analytics, member transparency and governance tools. The software is already used by protocols including Gitcoin, FEI and Ampleforth as the primary DAO interface. 

    "We believe that DAOs have the potential to be more scalable and more equitable than corporations,” Aleks Larsen, partner at Blockchain Capital, said in a press statement. “The Tally team has helped the oldest and largest DAOs solve critical governance and operational problems and is the partner of choice for new DAOs."

    Bertram told CoinDesk the money will be used to hire additional engineers and advertise Tally’s platform.

    The new funding follows a $1.5 million seed round announced in March.

    Disclosure

    Please note that our privacy policy, terms of use, cookies, and do not sell my personal information has been updated.

    CoinDesk is an award-winning media outlet that covers the cryptocurrency industry. Its journalists abide by a strict set of editorial policies. In November 2023, CoinDesk was acquired by the Bullish group, owner of Bullish, a regulated, digital assets exchange. The Bullish group is majority-owned by Block.one; both companies have interests in a variety of blockchain and digital asset businesses and significant holdings of digital assets, including bitcoin. CoinDesk operates as an independent subsidiary with an editorial committee to protect journalistic independence. CoinDesk employees, including journalists, may receive options in the Bullish group as part of their compensation.


    Learn more about Consensus 2024, CoinDesk's longest-running and most influential event that brings together all sides of crypto, blockchain and Web3. Head to consensus.coindesk.com to register and buy your pass now.