Some colleagues asked for my analysis on this proposal, so in the name of transparency, I’m openly sharing here:
About the Milestones setup:
- After the reformulation, M1 and M2 are $5k+5k, so I consider the risk much lower than previously ($10+15k).
- M1 aims to deliver 15+ qualified pre-evaluated leads, and 6-8 projects selected for acceleration. having some experience in these acceleration projects before, I think if we see that delivered, or close to that, we’ll all be feeling this project alive and blooming.
- Upon evaluating their M1 delivery, we’ll have a very strong substrate with which to decide on M2 and M3. In any case, M2 at $5k is still low risk, it only ramps up on M3 at $15k, but then we have M1 and M2 to judge on deliveries.
- M4 will be written as they go, but there’s plenty of time till there, and all the prior deliveries are what enable them to write M4.
I think their milestone setup is awesome. at 5+5+15… they really set it up with strong deliveries at M1 and M2 and ramp up only on M3.
There’s no way 5+5 pays for their initial efforts so my take is they are very confident with their deliveries and reaching M3 and M4.
About Francisco and Infrastructure Ventures:
- Francisco is not some 20 y/o crypto startup adventurer bro. As far as I know he’s had success in his venture business, with a decent sized, varied crypto/non-crypto portfolio, including incredible names in the space, such as Aave, Algorand, ICP, Kadena, Near and Avalanche.
- He is located in Europe, and part of his investment thesis is having a strong focus in Latin America. For me this is a good sign. For an European to invest in Latin America it’s out of conviction, not casual coincidence.
About the project itself:
It would be quite different from what we do in the DAO. They would do campaigns and bring a lot of projects, narrow down a selection, and very closely mentor for several weeks, end-to-end, with mentorship on product, tokenomics, engineering, marketing, sales, etc.
I’m optimistic this has the potential to become a repeating project, long term partnership, with Infrastructure Ventures accelerating very early stage startups which are not yet ready for funding here in the DAO.
Thinking like a sales funnel, we can continue funding mid-funnel projects, but Infrastructure Ventures would bring and support top-funnel, earlier stage projects, which we cannot do today.
For all these reasons, I think it should be a no-brainer, low-risk, great upside bet for us to approve M1 and M2.