A proposal seeking to create a $200 million fund dedicated to early-stage Web3 startups was submitted on Feb. 26 by Mantle Core on BitDAO’s governance forum. The ecosystem fund aims to boost the adoption of Mantle’s network among developers and Dapps.
Mantle is an Ethereum layer-2 network developed by the BitDAO ecosystem. According to the proposal, a capital pool of $200 million would be deployed within the Mantle ecosystem over the next three years. BitDAO’s treasury would provide $100 million in USD Coin (USDC), while another $100 million would be supplied by external matching capital from “strategic venture partners.”
Funds that have expressed interest in participating include Dragonfly Capital, Pantera, Folius Ventures, Play Ventures Future Fund, Spartan, Lemniscap, Selini Capital, Cadenza Ventures and QCP Capital, according to Mantle’s proposal.
[DISCUSSION] Mantle EcoFund@0xMantle has posted a discussion proposing:
✅ Authorization to establish Mantle EcoFund 1 of a capital pool of $200M (catalyzed with a target size of $100M from BitDAO).
✅ Authorization of first capital call: $10M USDC from the #BitDAO Treasury.
— BitDAO (@BitDAO_Official) February 26, 2023
If approved, the Mantle EcoFund and venture partners will participate in projects with 1:1 co-investment ratio. Web3 startups raising pre-seed, seed, and series A round will be targeted by the ecosystem fund.
The fund is proposed to have a three-year active investment period, plus two years of optional extension, a Mantle spokesperson told Cointelegraph by email. The initial fund operator is proposed to be Mirana Ventures, Bybit and BitDAO’s venture partner, with an investment committee comprising representatives from Mirana Ventures, Mantle, BitDAO and Bybit.
“The fund targets to invest in more than 100 projects deployed on Mantle and have a multiple on invested capital (MOIC) of 1.5x of cumulative performance through the fund’s lifecycle,” Mantle’s spokesperson said.
Management fees would be “industry standard,” with a 2% fee to support operational expenses of the EcoFund team, including sourcing, due diligence, legal, portfolio support and fund administration.
Across the crypto industry, similar initiatives aim to drive adoption and innovation. Last year, Ethereum scaling solution Polygon launched a $100 million fund aimed at improving access to decentralized finance, onboarding users and accelerating adoption.
