How to Start an Investment DAO

Samantha Marin -

DAOs make it easier to invest in digital assets with anyone around the world. Investment DAOs are a primary use case of DAOs and show how access to investment opportunities can be widened with blockchain technology.

What is an investment DAO?

An Investment DAO is an onchain organization composed of people who pool assets to make a return on their investment together. They store their assets in a shared treasury onchain and make decisions on where to invest those funds by voting.

Some aspects of an investment DAO:

  • A group of people investing their assets with the goal of making a return.
  • Need to move fast and stay agile, so wallet voting is common.
  • Often small (10 people or less).
  • If they grow, they may launch a governance token and distribute it in proportion to the amount of assets they have in the treasury, and they can “rage quit” with those assets: meaning burning or returning their governance tokens and withdrawing the equivalent portion of the treasury.

Currently, the Aragon App allows you to create a simple multisig DAO that allows you to make and execute decisions quickly without needing to wait for a vote to conclude. The App will become well-suited to launching your investment DAO in the future as the modularity of both the underlying protocol, Aragon OSx, and the App will allow you to customize your investment DAO in tons of different ways!

Let’s go through the steps of building your own investment DAO!

How to launch your investment DAO in under ten minutes using the Aragon App

Learn how to build an investment DAO in under ten minutes without writing a single line of code!

Set aside about ten minutes for this process. All you need is your own wallet address, but if you have the addresses of some members of your investment DAO, you can add those here, too.

1. Go to app.aragon.org and click “create a DAO”

Start from app.aragon.org. Click “Create a DAO.” You’ll see a preview of the steps you’re going to take. Click “Build your DAO” to continue.

2. Choose your blockchain

Choose Ethereum or Polygon. Keep in mind that while transactions are cheaper on Polygon, you might not have access to certain types of assets or strategies, like staking, that you may want in your investment DAO. So, consider which chain the tokens or NFTs are on that you may want to invest in.

3. Name and describe your DAO

Add a name, logo, and description for your DAO. If you chose Ethereum as your blockchain, you can also choose an ENS name.

An ENS name makes it easier to type in the address of your DAO, reducing user error and improving UX significantly!

4. Choose multisig voting and paste in the addresses of your members

Investment DAOs are typically small, permissioned groups because they need to move fast to deploy capital. Multisig voting in your DAO means you can execute actions as soon as the threshold of wallets approves them, which can be in just minutes!

5. Set approval threshold

The only governance setting you will need to set for your multisig DAO is the approval threshold. We recommend at least 50%.


6. Double check parameters and deploy

Now, check over all the parameters to deploy your DAO. Except for the blockchain you choose, you can change all of these later with a vote.

7: Click “Deposit Funds” and copy your DAO’s address

From your DAO homepage, click the “New Transfer” button and copy your DAO’s contract address or ENS domain if on Ethereum.

Now, head over to the multisig or wallet that you want to move funds from.

8: Send funds from your wallet to your new investment DAO

From your wallet, find the “Send” feature and paste in your DAO’s contract address/ENS domain. Choose the amount of funds you want to deposit into your DAO.

Now celebrate, because your investment DAO is live!

How to operate your investment DAO

Here are a few key actions focused on treasury management that you will likely want to take when operating your investment DAO.

Deposit funds

To deposit funds into your DAO, click “New Transfer.”

Then, copy the treasury address and paste it into your browser wallet to send funds.

Anyone in your DAO can perform this action, making it fast and easy for DAO members to add their funds to invest!

Create proposals to withdraw funds

To withdraw funds from your investment DAO, you will need to create a proposal that passes a vote in your DAO.

Click “New Transfer” and “Initiate withdrawal.” Then, add as many withdrawals as you need to and continue.

Add some information on the proposal so voters know why you’re initiating these withdrawals. Then, start the vote. If the vote passes, actions will be automatically executable by any wallet!

Swap tokens in the Smart Contract Composer

To swap tokens directly in your DAO, click “New Proposal.” Add the information about the token swap so members understand what they’re voting on.

When you get to the step that says “Add an Action,” click “Add Action” then “Smart Contract Composer.”

Now, you’ll need to follow the steps in this guide to add the Uniswap contract and initiate a token swap. If you need help, join the Aragon Discord to get your questions answered!

Next up: more plugins to help you run your organization

We’re building more plugins to help you run your organization to be able to do more complex tasks like stake assets and mint NFTs.

Wallet Connect, which more easily allows you to interact with other dApps, is also on the horizon for the App, so stay tuned!

Have experience working with smart contracts and want to try building a plugin yourself? Learn how to build a plugin here.

Build your investment DAO on the Aragon App today

Launch your investment DAO on the Aragon App in less than 10 minutes today! You can start simple and evolve as you go, adding more members, assets, and structure to your organization as your needs change.

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We can’t wait to see what you build!