Post-Mortem

03/11/23 - 03/12/23

SVB DAO was created in lightning speed on Saturday, March 11th, 2023 as a response to the unprecedented collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, which was taken over by the FDIC on Friday, March 10th, 2023.

A phenomenal group of 135 venture capitalists, founders, startup employees and blockchain enthusiasts sprung into action with the goal of using a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) structure to raise capital quickly, with the purpose of either 1) investing in SVB as a minority investor as part of consortium to take it private, or, if that was not successful, 2) investing directly in the startups that were affected.

Within 15 hours we had solidified a gameplan, launched a website and completed a full white paper. Within 36 hours we had a token sale ready to go, 21 investors KYCed, press release launched, multiple NFTs created, and millions in funds soft committed. All of this was coordinated through a WhatsApp channel.

On Sunday, March 12th the Treasury and FDIC announced that all depositor funds would be made whole, and bids were submitted to the FDIC by several potential acquirers.

So, within 48 hours, as a community we decided that the need to deploy capital into the ecosystem was no longer relevant and voted to disband the DAO. However, the community still remains connected, active and ready for the next challenge.

The SVB DAO experiment demonstrated the unequivocal power and speed of digital communities, as well as the enormous potential of investment DAOs.

The future is bright.