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Pooling assets and investing as a group of strangers into certain projects is not a new concept—there are crowdfunding platforms and P2P lending platforms around the world that do exactly that. However, imagine a world where the same thing can be done without a centralized platform, and there is no team behind the scenes managing operations. Welcome to the world of the Decentralized Autonomous Organization, AKA DAO.

In this series, we will compare different types of DAO with specific examples, examine the difference between DAO and traditional organizations in a deep analysis, clarify some misunderstandings, and explore the future potential of DAO, so be sure to stay tuned.

What is DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization)?

To put it simply, DAO is a new and different form of organization. Traditional organizations are usually corporations (e.g., Apple, Google, Toyota); LLC or Limited Liability Company, which is usually used by law firms and family offices; or a partnership, which is usually used by VC funds and PE funds. Just like other organizations, DAOs can pool assets from different individuals and organizations, decide what to do with the asset, and distribute profit to its backers.

The difference lies in that unlike other forms of organizations, a DAO is decentralized and entirely autonomous. In fact, it’s decentralized in a way that with some exceptions, usually, DAOs do not have a team of people, such as the management team and board members, who can make decisions on behalf of the entire organization.

It is autonomous in a way that most of the operation and decision-making processes of DAOs are represented by rules encoded as a transparent computer program, usually a blockchain.

The Current State of DAO and the Potential Future Impact

Currently, there are already a number of DAO’s making a splash in the market, including:

PleasrDAO, a DAO that consists of Defi leaders, early NFT collectors, and digital artists, has bought Snowden’s NFT for $5.5M and the original DOGE meme for $4M.

BLOCKS DAO LLC is the first DAO to take advantage of Wyoming State’s new law and register as a DAO in the United States.

BitDAO, a DAO established in June this year and already has a market cap of $23B, holds assets that can be used to provide liquidity to partners, and bootstrap new protocols such as decentralized exchanges (DEX), lending, and synthetics protocols.

YGG (Yield Guild Games) is a DAO that owns game assets and brings players together to earn via Play-To-Earn economies.

Although it’s unlikely to happen, if DAOs replaced all of the other forms of organizations in the world, shareholders, board members, CEO, and so-called “companies” would become a thing of the past.

https://headline.com/asia/en-us/post/all-about-dao-part-ii-dao-as-investment-vehicles

https://headline.com/asia/en-us/post/all-about-dao-part-iii-dao-as-an-operational-project

https://headline.com/asia/en-us/post/all-about-dao-part-iv-strengths--weaknesses-of

https://headline.com/asia/en-us/post/all-about-dao-part-v-dao-infrastructure-and-tools

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All About DAO (Part I): Decision Making in a Decentralized World

Imagine an organization where there are no shareholders, no board meetings, and no CEO - All about DAO

Imagine an organization where there are no shareholders, no board meetings, and no CEO.

Last time, we broke down what exactly Decentralized Autonomous Organizations are, AKA DAOs. In this piece, we’re going to take you further on the journey of understanding the concept of DAOs and all the different varieties there are.

These days, it feels like you can’t turn around without running into one. According to Headline Asia research, there are about 240 active DAOs all around the world, a 100% increase from 2020. In this article, we are going to be focusing on the DAOs that are run as investment vehicles.

DAOs are more efficient when it comes to pooling assets, and they offer a number of advantages when making investments as a group.

One of the most important benefits that a DAO offers is that the amount, return, and status of each investment is more transparent since investors no longer have to rely on fund managers to report the information. Rather, they can vote for each one and take a look at the blockchain later.

Another pro is that most partnerships and funds cannot be listed on public markets, so shares of a fund aren’t easily transferred. In contrast, DAO tokens can be listed on exchanges and transferred easily.

Investment targets could really be anything, from tokens of crypto projects, equity of companies to NFTs to the market-making type of investments. In November 2021, one crypto group dubbed ConstitutionDAO even made a bid for the original copy of the United States Constitution.

Ideally, anyone who holds a governance token of the DAO can propose and vote on an investment idea. In practice, these kinds of DAOs usually start with a group of people who hold the majority of the governance tokens, so they can execute and make decisions swiftly. After the DAO has built some investment track records, it releases more of its token to the public.

To increase the voting rate, some DAOs offer token rewards for voting. Some take a step further, rewarding a “Yes” vote on an outperforming investment and a “No” vote on an underperforming investment.

BitDAO (Number of members: 14,526; Funding raised: $2.6B) : One of the initiative’s primary aims is to attract developer talent via token swaps and co-development efforts. The token swaps will enable the BitDAO treasury to accumulate a collection of the top crypto project tokens.

dHedge (Number of members: 8,205; Funding raised: $534M): A project that focuses on non-custodial mimetic trading for synthetic assets on Ethereum.

The LAO (Number of members: 99; Funding raised: $64M): Its co-founder Aaron Wright is the founder of OpenLaw and a main contributor to The Wyoming DAO Bill.

MetaCartel (Number of members: 244,522; Funding raised: $78M): An community that was established in 2018 and was launched as a DAO on Ethereum in 2019.

DAOSquare (Number of members: 55; Funding raised: N/A): A Web3 incubator that helps startups with token economy solutions, technology innovation, and community operations.

Stacker (Number of members: 432; Funding raised: $3M): A community-run protocol initiating decentralized funds, accelerating portfolio investments through an involved community, and providing checks and balances to fund management.

AladdinDAO (Number of members: N/A; Funding raised: $68M): A decentralized network to shift crypto investments from venture capitalists to the wisdom of crowds through collective value discovery. The problem AladdinDAO solves is to battle information asymmetry and help retail investors filter the signal from the noise.

Neptune DAO (Number of members: 75; Funding raised: $42M): The first DAO to focus on Liquidity management. It aims to provide liquidity and support to DeFi/NFT and other protocols.

Jenny DAO (Number of members: 24; Funding raised: $9M+): The first Metaverse DAO to be built on Unicly. It will build one of the best 1-of-1, collectively owned NFT collections in the world.

PleasrDAO (Number of members: 69; Funding raised: N/A): A decentralized autonomous organization that rapidly organized on Twitter in order to purchase pplpleasr’s genesis NFT, whose proceeds benefit Asian American and Pacific Islander communities, among other minority groups.

Flamingo DAO (Number of members: 73; Funding raised: $33M): An NFT-focused DAO that aims to explore emerging investment opportunities for own-able, blockchain-based assets.

MEMEX (Number of members: N/A; Funding raised: N/A): A community started as a joke by the Product Head at Consensys and now working on launching a DAO on Fantom.

Whale DAO (Number of members: N/A; Funding raised: N/A): Holds some of the rarest and valuable NFTs across blockchain gaming, digital art, virtual real estate, and other highly-coveted digital collectibles.

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All About DAO (Part II): DAO as Investment Vehicles

DAOs are taking over — one even came close to buying the original United States Constitution.

As decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) continue to gain steam around the world, numerous use cases for these organizations also continue to emerge. Last time, we examined DAOs that are run as investment vehicles. This time, we will share all about operation DAOs that are completely reinventing the wheel when it comes to running projects — or companies.

In the Web 2.0 world, when you want to build a social media like Facebook, a matching platform like Airbnb, a game studio like Epic Games, or a P2P lending platform like LendingClub, you usually start by registering through a corporation. Your team is then built using the revenue or the capital raised by using equity and debt. Stock options are provided as incentives, but only to certain key employees.

In the Web 3.0 ecosystem, however, you are able to create a new token to be distributed to every contributor and/or patron for their contribution. Through this ecosystem, raising funds by using tokens from private and public markets is made possible.

Yield Guild Games (YGG) (Fully Diluted Basis Valuation: USD $5.6 billion): YGG is a Play-To-Earn gaming guild, bringing players together to earn via blockchain-based economies. Yield Guild Games has built a community of scholars (who earn money by playing games) and investors (who invest in the game assets that the scholars use to play). There are also community managers who make sure the scholars play according to the rules. Infinity Ventures Crypto invested in YGG’s $4.6 million Series A raise alongside a16z. YGG marked a16z’s first investment in the Philippines.

YGGSEA: YGGSEA, a joint venture between Infinity Ventures Crypto and YGG, is the first subDAO of YGG, focusing on creating communities in Southeast Asia.

Merit Circle (Fully Diluted Basis Valuation: USD $5 billion): Merit Circle is a similar business as YGG and a fast-growing late-comer. It was launched in November 2021, while its token valuation is catching up to the top players.

MetaFactory: MetaFactory is a crowdfunding platform for the creation of community-owned brands with an initial focus on fashion and apparel. It curates and manages the brand ownership (IP) and product auction marketplace, as well as handling product production and fulfillment on behalf of its brand partners.


Friends With Benefits (FWB) (Fully Diluted Basis Valuation: USD $79 million): FWB started as a Discord group. To join FWB, one needs a written application, reviewed and voted by the community itself, and a minimum of FWB tokens to represent ownership in the DAO. As the amount of content added to FWB increases, so does the value of this community. Since its inception as a social experiment in September 2020, FWB has grown to nearly 2,000 members. In addition to a series of parties around the world, it has also launched the “token-gated events” application, NFT gallery, Web3-centric editor Business, virtual music studios, etc.

Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC): BAYC is a community of Bored Ape NFT owners, which is a series of NFT art that is typically used as a profile picture. The highest price that a Bored Ape NFT has ever been sold is USD $2.8 million.


Uniswap (Fully Diluted Basis Valuation: USD $15 billion): Uniswap (UNI) is an Ethereum token that powers Uniswap, an automated liquidity provider that’s designed to make it easy to exchange Ethereum (ERC-20) tokens. There is no order book or central facilitator on Uniswap. In regards to the market cap, Uniswap is the largest DAO.

Compound (Fully Diluted Basis Valuation: USD $1.9 billion): Compound (COMP) is an Ethereum token that enables community governance of the Compound protocol. The protocol is a series of decentralized interest rate markets that allow users to supply and borrow Ethereum tokens at variable interest rates. COMP token holders and their delegates can also debate, propose, and vote on changes to the protocol.

Aave (Fully Diluted Basis Valuation: USD $2.8 billion): Aave (AAVE) is an Ethereum token that powers Aave, a decentralized non-custodial money market protocol where users can participate as depositors or borrowers. Depositors provide liquidity to the market to earn a passive income, while borrowers are able to borrow cryptocurrencies in exchange for paying a variable interest rate.

Lido (Fully Diluted Basis Valuation: USD $3.2 billion): Lido is a liquid staking solution for Ethereum and other proof-of-stake chains. This allows users to stake their tokens without having to lock assets or maintain staking infrastructure. Users who stake via Lido receive daily rewards in the form of staking derivative tokens which are pegged 1:1 to the underlying staked assets.

Olympus (Fully Diluted Basis Valuation: USD $573 million): Olympus is an algorithmic currency protocol with the goal of becoming a stable crypto-native currency. Though sometimes called an algorithmic stablecoin, Olympus is more akin to a central bank since it uses reserve assets like DAI to manage its price. The goal is to achieve price stability while maintaining a floating market-driven price. The biggest difference between OHM and stablecoins like USDC is that OHM is backed but not pegged to a certain price.


ENS (Fully Diluted Basis Valuation: USD $4.3 billion): ENS is an open, public, decentralized identity protocol that runs on the Ethereum blockchain. Users can register ETH names native to ENS or import in DNS domain names they already own, which they can use as their cross-platform Web3 username and profile, one name for all of their crypto addresses, and as a decentralized website.

Rarible (Fully Diluted Basis Valuation: USD $352 million): RARI is an Ethereum token that powers Rarible, a community-owned marketplace for creating, selling, or collecting NFTs. RARI can be earned by using the platform and can be used to curate content and vote on platform upgrades.

Gitcoin (Fully Diluted Basis Valuation: $USD 961 million): Gitcoin (GTC) is an Ethereum token that enables community governance of the Gitcoin platform. The platform is designed to fund and coordinate open-source development by novel means such as quadratic funding. As of June 2021, Gitcoin has facilitated over $21 million in grants and bounties for open-source developers.

All About DAO (Part III): DAO as an Operational Project

DAOs offer an alternative way to run a business without a CEO or a top-down structure.

This is part IV of our series to explore and understand the concept of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAO). As we said previously in our piece about DAO as an Investment Vehicle, based on Headline Asia’s research, there are about 240 active DAOs worldwide, which is a 100 percent increase from 2020. Ideally, DAO could be a perfect substitution for all the existing organizational structures.

But before we get ahead of ourselves, there are a few matters to confront first, such as the principal-agent problem. In an organization, there are priority conflicts between an organization (the “Principal”) and the representative authorized to act on their behalf (the “Agent”). An agent may act in a way that is contrary to the best interests of the principal, and may instead maximize his/her own personal gain. For example, a company might be facing a cash flow problem, and it would be in its best interest to reduce cost, however, the board of directors might want to maximize their own gain, increasing their salary drastically.

DAO could be an effective solution to this hierarchy problem, as it exists in organizations all over the world. Contrary to traditional organizations, in DAO an “Agent” doesn’t exist as there isn’t a small group of people that can make decisions on behalf of the entire organization. Conceptually, even if someone wants to act in a way that is contrary to the best interests of the DAO, they can’t unless they are able to persuade other members of the DAO to vote for them.

Highly efficient: In conventional organizations, such processes are carried out by an authorized trusted group of people, such a board. DAO eliminates a lot of the delay caused by bureaucratic red tape, as the voting and the execution of every decision made by a DAO is carried out by computer programs such as smart contracts on a blockchain. DAO, which runs on computer programs, can make major decisions faster, with less human error, with a lower human cost, and with higher transparency.

Equal footing: Because DAO is a decentralized organization, neither a CEO nor a hierarchy exists. Every member, located all around the world, contributes to the organization and participates in the decision-making process, all from the same position. Rather than leaving the research and development or innovation to a subset within an organization, anyone in a DAO can propose a new idea.

Hacking risk: While it is possible for any organization to be hacked, the chances are less. An organization that is not run on computer programs usually requires a certain person’s manual action to approve any transfer of large amounts of money. This slows down the process but makes it much harder for hackers to interfere. On the other hand, DAO is all digital and codes, making them susceptible to the online attacks. Just earlier this month, BadgerDAO reported that a hacker stole USD $119 million through a straight-forward front end attack using a MetaMask wallet to make illicit requests from users. BadgerDAO isn’t the first to confront this issue and likely they won’t be the last. Hacking is a major concern for Web3.0 and the crypto industry.

Quorum voting: Ideally, every member of DAO will propose and vote proactively. Unlike a traditional board meeting where members physically gather for votes, it’s unrealistic to gather all members of a DAO for every meeting. It’s the reality of the internet—not everyone is online and active at all times. If quorum isn’t met, which varies from DAO to DAO, a proposal cannot be passed. Thus, keeping members involved with the DAO and having them vote is an important challenge that every DAO needs to face.

Lack of regulation: While DAOs are fully legal in the state of Wyoming (they passed new legislation that defines and legalizes DAO in April 2021, giving DAO members equal rights as members of an LLC), most jurisdictions around the world have yet to come around. What results is that most DAOs are self-governed but are stuck in ambiguous legal limbo. Unregulated and unprotected, DAO members have few options to turn to for settling legal disagreements. Nonetheless, it is expected in the near future, more and more jurisdictions will make clear their stance on DAO.

All about DAO (Part IV): Strengths & Weaknesses of DAO

Like most inventions, DAO innovatively solves some problems, but also creates some others.

At the end of 2021, according to our own research, we calculated that currently, there are about 240 active Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAO) around the world. That’s a 100% increase from 2020!

We talked about DAO as an investment vehicle and also as an operational project. Last time, we covered the strengths and weaknesses of DAOs. These are the tools most commonly used to build and operate DAOs in this day and age.

According to a survey conducted by Gitcoin DAO, communications tools Discord, Twitter, and Telegram are in the top three of most commonly used, discord taking the first place (which is not mind-blowing). However, the fourth most used tool and perhaps the most surprising is email.

DAO members also use Web3 native tools such as modern forum software Discourse, secure messaging app Status, amongst others. Some DAOs also use other Web2.0 tools such as Slack, WeChat, Notion to name a few.

According to a survey of 422 people from 223 DAOs in 290 cities around the world featured on CoinYuppie, the most used layer 1 blockchain by DAOs is Ethereum. Its usage is 40% more than the next blockchain, Binance Coin. Third place goes to Solana, followed then by Bitcoin at fourth.

From this part of our series, decision makings in DAOs are unified and with no hierarchy. Member’s votes are collected and the computer programs execute the decision, but usually the DAOs do not build such computer programs by themselves from scratch.

One such pioneer in the infrastructure layer for DAOs is Moloch, a simple, open-source DAO framework that was first launched in 2019. The LAO, which is the DAO that pushed Wyoming State to legally accept the existence of DAO, had worked with Moloch to develop MolochDAO V2, a framework that is used by several pioneer DAOs (e.g. MetaCartel, Flamingo) to build their governance structure.

There are also other DAO infrastructures that are one-stop solutions for anyone to build a DAO on top of. Aragon and DAOHaus are two of the leading players in the current landscape.

On the other hand, there are also some infrastructure providers that allow developers to build DAOs in a modular way that allows developers to choose different tools for different functionalities, and even integrate some of the modular tools into non-DAO organizations.

According to DAO data analysis organization DeepDAO, the most popular combination is using Snapshot for a voting system and Gnosis Safe for the treasury and execution functions. DAOStack is another open-source framework where you can launch a DAO in a modular approach. Boardroom and Tally are less popular alternatives to Snapshot. Fireblocks is an expensive alternative to Gnosis Safe, as it is not open source, but a paid product.

Some crypto funds that are registered as traditional Limited Partnership instead of DAO have also adopted Snapshot and Gnosis Safe in their operations.

POAP is a new way of keeping a reliable record of life experiences. Each time the users take part in an event, they get a unique badge that is supported by a cryptographic record. These badges are Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT) and they allow event organizers to better engage with their audience. According to a survey by CoinYuppie, POAP is the commonly used Web3 tool.

Rabbithole allows users to explore and learn how to use and contribute to decentralized apps, earning tokens based on their on-chain activity. The users can earn on-chain credentials that demonstrate their mastery of core skills and knowledge. Crypto projects, on the other hand, can attract more users via Rabbithole.

All About DAO (Part V): DAO Infrastructure and Tools

The last part of our DAO series contains the tools that are currently most often used by DAOs. Since there is no hierarchy in the voting aspect of DAOs, members rely on computer programs to carry the weight. The top three social media apps (Discord, Twitter, and Telegram) that came on top didn't raise any eyebrows but the fourth one did.

Part Five of the DAO series: the tools that most DAOs use.

We all love stories of rivalry. We are fascinated by the clashes. Edison v. Tesla. Ford v. Ferrari. Tupac v. Biggie Smalls. They are a way to impose a narrative on facts, to turn numbers into vivid characters and exciting stakes. And oftentimes, they don’t make that much sense.

That’s what longtime duellists Deposit Solutions and Raisin, two of Europe’s largest FinTech have realized. In a deal 17 months in the making, they stop building in parallel and turn their two champions into one to dominate the largest financial products market: Savings.

A recap: Deposit Solutions is the leading B2B platform in the savings space. It counts 150 partners including Deutsche Bank. Raisin leads the European B2C savings and investments space. The new entity Raisin DS will offer both B2B and B2C products, directly serving 550.000 customers in 30 markets.

For savers, the merger means more product choice. Incumbent banks benefit from easier tools, funding sources, and consumer access. By catering to businesses and consumers alike, profitability is boosted with higher revenues, better unit economics, and cost-efficiencies.

With the merger, the financial industry can grow a more robust backbone with much-needed open banking standards. A € 37 trillion combined EU + US market is the reward.

This is also a story of 10 years working together closely: First as a Board member, then Chairman, now again as Board of the new entity. When we first partnered and invested in the Seed Stage, Deposit Solutions had the founder Tim Sievers and 1 full-time employee: his CTO Marco Holm. The merged company will now have over 500.

Tim has lots of what we call CEO fuel: The personality and skills to lead a company from idea to IPO.

Many young founders have their strengths in the early start-up phase but fail to manage the challenges of a company of hundreds. By contrast, seasoned executives often lack the creativity, detail orientation, and risk-taking that a startup needs. Tim combines both. He has lots of what we call CEO fuel: The personality and skills to lead a company from idea to IPO. 

When my good friend Stefan Wiskemann introduced us in 2011, what stopped us in our tracks was Tim’s approach. He’s soft-spoken. Understated. The kind of startup person to wear a tie: “I’d rather be the only person wearing one to an appointment rather than the only one who doesn’t”. And he’s extremely analytical, diligent, and collaborative. Not a person to be consumed by senseless duels.

He had built an early product-market fit in a small sub-segment (rental deposits). Unlike many digital entrepreneurs, such as neo-banks or robo-advisors, Tim didn’t try to replace established financial services companies but cooperated at eye level. 

He went after network effects with established companies, not to waste resources (and venture capital) trying to fight each other, but to create innovative, cost-reducing business process changes in win-win constellations. 

We were the first institutional investor. Together, we onboarded a group of top-level co-investors Peter Thiel, Kinnevik, Greycroft, Vitruvian, and many others we are deeply grateful for as Deposit Solutions continued to grow.


The choice of merging with Tamaz Georgadze’s Raisin is the natural step of this mindset: Achieve together something neither of us would be able to accomplish alone.

A huge congrats to everyone involved. You have both built a fantastic team and brought on board fitting investors at every stage.

Onwards in leading this new champion to set new industry standards and become a true global market leader, co-CEOs Tim and Tamaz!

Deposit Solutions + Raisin: Rivals Build Giant

We all love stories of rivalry. We are fascinated by the clashes. Edison v. Tesla. Ford v. Ferrari. Tupac vs. Notorious B.I.G. They are a way to impose a narrative on facts, to turn numbers into vivid characters and exciting stakes. And oftentimes, they don’t make that much sense.

Deposit Solutions + Raisin: Rivals Team Up

We’re excited to take the wraps off our Seed investment in Fancy, the UK’s fastest-growing, on-demand convenience app, and to also announce that Fancy is being acquired by our portfolio company Gopuff, the leader in instant needs. 

This transaction represents a terrific win-win-win for Fancy, Gopuff, and all shareholders. Most importantly, this inaugurates Gopuff’s entry into Europe  —  where we are fully confident that together with Fancy, it will continue to delight millions of customers.

Last year, our global team studied the up-and-coming “Gopuff clones” emerging in Europe. As one of the earliest backers of Gopuff in 2016, we knew that the business model had the potential to be hugely successful in Europe and we were eager to identify the best emerging companies on the continent.

With Gopuff nearing 600 markets in the US, we turned our sights to the UK, Germany, France, Scandinavia, and other European countries for its next expansion effort. Over the years we have helped a number of our portfolio companies expand internationally (Farfetch, Groupon, and The RealReal) by leveraging the Headline team and network across Europe, Brazil, and Asia. 

Over the course of a couple weeks, our team scanned the landscape and ultimately we landed on one shining example of a company that had the characteristics we were looking for: strong traction in several markets in the UK, hungry founders laser-focused on execution (not PR), and genuine customer obsession.

Armed with conviction in our new friends at Fancy, we led the Seed round in 2020 and I joined the board.

Congratulations, Fancy! And welcome to Europe, Gopuff!

It has been a distinct pleasure to partner with Co-Founders Arnie Englander and Jack Wilson. When we first introduced Arnie and Jack to Rafael and Yakir, Gopuff’s Co-Founders and Co-CEOs, they exclaimed that the Fancy founders “are just like us!” We are thrilled that these two amazing teams are joining forces to dominate the UK’s instant needs category. 

A huge congratulations to everyone involved, and welcome to Europe, Gopuff!

A Match Made in Delivery Heaven: Fancy + Gopuff

Celebrating Gopuff’s rocket launch into Europe.

Headline is an expression of the many eyes that make up our global perspective. It is our full-conviction, full-lifecycle commitment. It is the energy we gain from our relationships, and hope to spread around the world.

In 2020, we reflected on our more than two decades in the venture capital business. With a team of almost 70 people globally that shared one culture, and a seamless worldwide infrastructure across the US, Europe, Asia, and Latin America, we had the building blocks in place to go even faster.

While we often wished that our journey had been a straight line – especially in the long troughs of fundraising and in the midst of countless investor rejections – the circuitous path of our history served us well. We strengthened our vision and gained enormous empathy for the founder’s journey. Our patient investors have been rewarded with top decile returns.

First, we start with a proprietary technology operating system that allows us to discover companies earlier than others.

Our strategy, detailed below, works because of its simplicity and repeatability. First, we start with a proprietary technology operating system that allows us to discover companies earlier than others. Second, we work with a group of immensely talented investors, and an extended global team, who all share values and a vision of success. And finally, we have an unparalleled global infrastructure – one with teams and relationships on four continents – that allow our portfolio companies to grow bigger, faster.

Our Technology Operating System. At the core of our strategy is our own technology platforms, EVA and ATHENA, both developed in-house. The backbone of our aggressive outbound strategy is EVA, our proprietary sourcing technology originally developed 13 years ago. EVA uses backtested algorithms to monitor 10M+ companies to find rising, often undiscovered winners. Once we’ve found a company, we apply our business analytics software, ATHENA, to use company-provided data to underwrite quickly and accurately, benchmark, and project realistic future capital needs and plausible growth trajectories. And this in seconds, not days. 

Heart. Our team is the heart of Headline. We have recruited and mentored some of the best investors in the business. We value creativity, risk-taking, empathy, and collaboration. We are a true ensemble, all contributing different strengths, skills, interests, and talents to the whole. Our relationships are built on trust and warmth, and we deeply respect the founder’s journey. As a team we have sipped caipirinhas on the beaches of Copacabana and met founders in the Hutongs of Beijing.

Our Global Vision. We never believed Silicon Valley is the end-all-be-all. The foundation we have laid is one that brings together people from many geographies, cultures and backgrounds under one Headline roof. While some of us may be sitting at a desk in San Francisco, Berlin, Paris, São Paulo, or Tokyo, we share the same process, technology-enabled decision making, global connectivity, and empathetic mindset and respect for company builders.

These three elements combine to fuel our founders with resources at every stage of their companies’ lifecycles.

These three elements combine to fuel our founders with resources at every stage of their companies’ lifecycles. Although we have come a long way since our early days, our future will remain one of independent thinking and forging our own unique path. We are laser focused on building a fully technology-enabled investment platform from which our partners will seamlessly launch new innovative products and new geographies to better serve global founders. 

We are building a deep moat in the process. By using our technologies we have collected a massive set of data characteristics of every startup of the last 10 years throughout their development. Processing and utilizing the learnings through those singular insights to better identify and pick winners across the globe, will be a key to our success that drives repeatability.

Our industry never stops changing and we asked the people who knew us best where we could improve. The resounding consensus was that we needed the “glue” of a brand to tie together our global offices, strategies, and people. We needed our internal thoughtfulness and uniqueness to match our external image. As it turned out, brand does matter!  

Many people told us that no company would ever change its name if it was successful. But during the branding process with our partners’ voices around the globe, it became very clear that we needed not just a new look, but also a new name that would be timeless, memorable, and representative of our philosophy for decades to come. Over the years, we’ve committed to founders as they’ve risen the ranks and taken the spotlight. The name “Headline” is meant to recognize these people and their stories, while symbolizing our dedication to helping them leave their mark. 

The name is just one reflection of our commitment to living our brand by helping our entrepreneurs win, bigger.

The name is just one reflection of our commitment to living our brand by helping our entrepreneurs win, bigger. As part of this exercise, we have tried to design every single touch point we have to ensure that the smallest interactions reflect integrity, radical candor and empathy. 

Headline is an expression of the many eyes that make up our global vision.  It is our full-conviction, full-lifecycle commitment, with our Early Stage funds on four continents feeding our global Growth Fund. It is a celebration of our portfolio founders – our Headliners. It’s the energy we gain from these relationships, and hope to spread around the world.

Our entire global team is excited to warmly welcome you into the Headline family. 

Nicole is like a kite — I'm the string.

Santa Monica-based Trellis has created an AI-powered research and analytics platform to make state court trial data accessible for the first time. Headline led Trellis’ Series A, announced October 2021. 

There are plants in every corner: fern and palm varieties erupting out of their pots; thick, leafy vines climb the walls. There's also a Guiana Chestnut — better known by its colloquial name, "money tree" — in their office garden. The tree is the subject of a running joke among the team, explains co-founder and CEO Nicole Clark: it represents growth in good times and is laughingly referred to as the financial backup plan during times of strain.

Together, Alon and Nicole tend to the growth of Trellis, an AI-based state court data analytics platform, with the care of gardeners. Even their own working relationship is the subject of thoughtful cultivation. 

We caught up with Nicole and Alon for a stroll around their office neighborhood in Santa Monica to learn more about just what it is that makes their partnership, their business, and of course, their gardens — grow.

Let’s start at the beginning. You two seem like you’ve been friends forever — when did you first hit it off?

Nicole: Actually, my executive coach played matchmaker! She had also been Alon’s employee at one of his prior companies, and thought the two of us should meet. Obviously, she was right!

Alon: To me, it was immediately obvious. Nicole just has it. She has what it takes to be an incredible CEO. I’m not sure she even fully realizes it yet, but she has it. 

Nicole: Alon originally joined me as a technical advisor to the company, but he was adding incredible value from the start, he was actually doing work. Most advisors just opine, which is great assuming they are smart and skilled, but leaves early founders with a lot of great advice and no one to help execute. Alon got his hands dirty immediately. I secretly knew I was recruiting him the entire time he was advising the company...I just kept integrating him more and more into the team and aligning with him on goals and strategy. 

Why did it take you time to join as a co-founder? 

Alon: Well, my previous company hadn’t ended well. I had promised myself that that was my last startup. Four startups is enough! Being a startup uncle (a.k.a. an advisor) was more appealing at the time — you get to come in and have fun, help the team learn and grow, and then leave all the difficult gut wrenching parts to the parents! But, at the end of the day, I’m a builder — not a consultant. 

What strength would you most like to steal from each other?

Alon: Nicole is an outstanding salesperson. I am direct, sometimes abrasive. Nicole is the opposite, extremely poised and disarming. She has the power to get people excited: our team, our customers. People want to join her.

Nicole: Alon has been on every side of the table, CEO, CTO, investor, coach. It's given him the ability to see various perspectives at once, and still prioritize. He is a master translator — he can make incredibly complex technical issues really simple and clear.

Where’s the line between your strengths?

Nicole: I have a million thoughts running at the same time, constantly switching contexts. Alon listens, brings me back to tackle one problem at a time, then actually executes — fixes it, whether it's pushing the team, doing it himself, or in some cases pushing me. Alon is an excellent leader, and excels at driving progress. When he can’t push, he literally pulls us forward. But he gets it done. Every partnership needs that kind of balance.

Alon: I can put this simply: Nicole is like a kite — I’m the string. 

Nicole: What happens if Google gets into your space? You could say that to any company — large or small, corporation or startup. It’s basically a lazy VC question, it's what investors ask when they have not dug in enough to ask relevant questions, or they simply don’t really understand your market or your business.

Alon: Without a doubt! There’s no answer to that question that will satisfy any investor. If you mention the potential for an acquisition, they get concerned the exit will be too early, too small. To quote Hamilton, "We will fight the fight and win the war.” What else is there to do?

Alon: “It’s not who’s going to let me, it’s who’s going to stop me!“ When I was very young, I found myself waiting for permission — I’ve quickly learned that I just need to do what needs to be done, even if the result is not guaranteed. 

Nicole: “Life unfolds in proportion to your courage.”

Life unfolds in proportion to your courage.

You both have kids — what’s the essential routine, ritual, or question that keeps you grounded at home?

Alon: Tell my kids I love them at least once per day. You can’t say it enough. Yeah, also give them long, strong hugs.

Any brilliant advice for other Founders with families?

Alon: It’s not about quality time, quantity matters. When they grow, no one will remember you being at or missing an event, but the repeated memory of you reading them a book, listening to them telling you about their day, inventing a story, will stay with them. Some of it, I’ve learned later, but it’s never too late.

Nicole:  In some ways I think the idea of attaining work life balance (particularly as a founder) is a bit of a trap. That doesn't mean you ignore your family, it means, you should strive to be present wherever you are, at any given moment. And when you find those quiet moments with your family, at the end of the day, or in the morning, be there with them, be connected.  

Strive to be present wherever you are, at any given moment. And when you find those quiet moments with your family, at the end of the day, or in the morning, be there with them, be connected.  

Alon: The first stage has been depleted and now we have this super booster in the second phase of the growth of the company. I told Nicole the other day, our tanks are full of jet fuel and now it's time for us to go and execute in the fastest and most aggressive way that we can —there's so much to do. The path is clear and strategy is sound. 

Nicole: Really, this next phase of life is about growth in all ways — Trellis’ growth as a business, our team's growth as professionals, and my personal growth as a leader, a parent, a partner and a human. 

Few companies can claim they are creating an industry: Homa Games is one of them. It’s a complete tool stack that allows indie game creators to speed up development and compete with much larger studios. They provide intelligence, distribution, and monetization while game developers can focus on their creativity. 500 million game downloads and a $50M Series A round in, I sat down with co-founder and CEO Daniel Nathan to chat about company culture, painting as an antidote to emailing, and getting lost in the forest.

Let’s jump straight into it. Where does your itch to build come from?

My parents weren’t business people. But they would tell me stories about my grandfathers. One ran hardware stores. The other had a candy shop and a horse betting business on the side. I  met them maybe  10 times in total in my life: They were in Morocco and the UK, we were in France. In my mind, I made up movies about what great entrepreneurs they were. My mom would tell me that I was like them, that I could achieve all I wanted. I was growing up as the internet was growing up: As soon as I discovered blogs, I would read any entrepreneurship post I could find. Loïc Le Meur, TechCrunch when Michael Harrington was the sole contributor. I got the entrepreneurial mindset from the stories of my grandfathers and the internet gave me tech role models.

How smoothly did things turn out? Why Paris via Berlin?

In France, the name of the school you attend matters. When I was young, people would call me ambitious, and I was like: Yeah, I am. I really wanted to get into the best school. I didn’t and felt extremely frustrated, I struggled a lot because of it. I told myself that I might not be the most qualified academically, but that I’d be the best in business. That was a defining moment for me. I left for Berlin, Germany to go where nobody knew me and start from scratch. Years later, I realized how hard it was to hire talent there. Paris was not hyped and had plenty of engineers, so I decided it’s where I’d build Homa Games.

In a way, Homa also comes from a certain frustration you felt…

My previous companies were in AdTech, with a focus on user acquisition for games. It’s a tough value proposition. You get compared all the time to the performance of Google and Facebook, two walled gardens that have access to all the data and all the content. Their pitch is easy and you cannot fight it. I knew they’d never let us work in a level playing field against them. It frustrated me immensely: We had to have “our” content. We knew about user acquisition and monetization, but nothing about building apps. So we thought we could partner with those who did. We were used to companies that would spend 12-18 months prototyping a game before putting it in front of their users. These indie developers would have users test their games after two days. We realized how “easy” it is to build games compared to the challenge of finding the right ideas and distributing them. We saw we could offer a support layer on top of game engines and do something entirely new.

Choosing VCs is like building a football team. You need to decide what everyone’s role in your cap table will be. Some will be strong in marketing. Others in customer intros. Everyone has different skills and it’s up to you how you use them. You wouldn’t ask your goalkeeper to strike the goals.

What were you completely wrong about?

In hindsight, it’s crazy. But we originally thought we needed to offer game design support. We were absolutely wrong. We needed more data analysts, to look at the data and clearly show game creators what their users are doing, signal why they churn, and better support with distribution and monetization. Today Homa is all about providing better and better data, not about influencing design choices.

This is also the first time you raise venture capital. How does it feel?

I used to feel very alone in my job: I don’t anymore. I feel empowered, like if I had had a much bigger team. I had a few “bad” VC meetings. But I consider most of them our fault. I don’t think it’s the VC’s job to be as close to your business as you are. If you get misunderstood, you have to reconsider your approach and how you communicate. One VC, in particular, gave us very harsh feedback. Her points were all wrong, but they helped us rethink our communication tremendously. Any question, no matter how harsh or wrong, underlines something else in our character.

How do you “use” your investors in the most effective way?
First, you have to only onboard VCs whose values align with yours across all company stages. And you can’t expect to receive the same kind of support from each of them.

It’s akin to building a football team. You need to decide what everyone’s role in your cap table will be. Some will be strong in marketing. Others in customer intros. Everyone has different skills and it’s up to you how you use them. You wouldn’t ask your goalkeeper to strike the goals.

How did the fundraising affect you, personally?

I never thought in terms of work-life balance. If I tried to separate the two, things would feel miserable. I have one life and it’s my duty to do what I want with the time in it. And I’m always excited at the idea of working as if it was a hobby. But since I had a baby a year ago, my calendar is blocked every day 6-8 for her. I actively try to spend as much time together as possible.

What’s something people don’t tell you about being an entrepreneur?

There are lots of ups, lots of downs. A healthy life is the only way not to burn out. I do sports daily. I don’t meditate but pray as my form of meditation. I try to keep things simple at every level. I eat well. Venture building is like preparing for a UEFA Champions League final (an annual football competition). You can’t just go out. You train. You focus. You stay positive. You are like an athlete.

As of now, you have 4 office locations. How does that affect your culture?

It’s a written culture. So it’s crucial that everything is written well. Hiring people from a strategy consulting background had a huge impact in raising the bar on how to communicate internally. We create as many explanatory videos as possible and have a very detailed wiki everyone has access to. The goal is to completely onboard every new hire within 5 days. We actively try to foster in-person connection, but processes and written performance objectives are what set us apart.

What’s something most people don’t know about you?

I read philosophy, I paint a lot. And I am very bad at it. Years ago, I felt very tired and down. Running a tech business can make you forget your hands can do more things than typing and a posteriori, I think it was very important for my well-being. It’s crazy to think, but a lot of the value I create as a founder comes from writing emails. I started to paint without knowing what I was doing and it gave me so much joy and satisfaction. The act of creating something that was in my mind and is now there in the world. I started taking lessons. I go to museums, get inspired, and try to paint what I see in my style. I actually proposed to my wife through a surprise painting I did.

What artist is on your mind, currently?

Recently, I was shocked by art from XCOPY [an NFT artist]. You look at it, and it makes your body squirm. His composition and color are repulsive. As if he wanted you to feel bad. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the naivety of Basquiat’s painting is smashing. You feel good, you see lots of colors from your childhood. I respect any artist, regardless of their fame. I respect the idea of taking time to create something with no intrinsic value. The act of creating. Schopenhauer [a German philosopher] would say that only math and art matter in this world.

If you wrote a book, what would it be about?

Something to try to raise consciousness about life and the impact of peer pressure. Life is not dark, or pink, or blue. It is what it is. Everyone has the power to change it. And I am not talking about becoming a billionaire, just focusing on finding what you really care about. There is no reason to be brought down by peer pressure. I suck at painting and I care only about improving my skills so I can paint exactly what I have in mind. I don’t care about peer pressure.  My biggest quality is that I don't fear failure. Most people don’t act because of fear of failure. 


Give us an insider tip. Your favorite spot in Paris?

The most untouched parts of the Fontainebleu forest. It’s near Paris, but you feel it’s not near Paris at all. It's crazy, like a jungle. You get lost. You feel a bit insecure. I love to run there for hours and find my way back.

What’s next for Homa Games?

We will continue to show how we create a ton of value for every single developer working on Unity. We are bringing the intelligence while the game engines are bringing the tools. Without the former, the latter will not bring you very far. We are in the business of helping other people’s creativity succeed.

500 million game downloads and a $50M Series A round in, we sit down with co-founder and CEO Daniel Nathan to chat about company culture, painting as an antidote to emailing, and getting lost in the forest.

Daniel Nathan, founder of Homa Games

Founder and CEO of Elemy (formerly Sprout Therapy)

From med school hopeful to founder of a telecom company, from Airbnb host (for his own bedroom) to launching Cape Cod’s largest hotel chain, there’s no predicting what Yury Yakubchyk will do next. 

The last 18 months are no exception. In that time, Yury transitioned from the hotel industry to founding Elemy, which provides in-home applied behavioral analysis (ABA) therapy to children with autism. He raised two rounds of funding. He grew the company’s headcount to over a thousand. Today, Elemy is one the fastest-growing companies of its kind in the United States. 

I caught up with Yury to learn more about this circuitous path, the opportunity for changing autism care, and – how he does it all while keeping (an almost completely) empty calendar. 

Elemy is not your first company – take me back to the beginning. When did you first get the itch to start something?

I started a telecommunications business in my early twenties, right after graduating college. I went on a trip abroad with my friends from high school, and we all had these crazy cellular data roaming bills. We were like, "We’ve got to create a better experience than that." So, we started a consumer wireless company called Wing. 

The telecommunications business had a very slow start. So while I was launching Wing, I had some Airbnbs to make ends meet in New York City.

...you were working the Manhattan Airbnb scene to make ends meet?

I had a three bedroom and I started living on the couch and renting out my room. I was like, "Wow, this is $180 a night." I was sleeping on my own couch. I was eating from fruit stands in Manhattan for half my meals. I was doing some tutoring. I taught myself how to code to do some freelance stuff...but the Airbnb thing was pretty gritty.

How did your roommates feel about waking up to you on the couch and a stranger in the bathroom?

Honestly, I think for the first five months, they thought it was hilarious. They were very supportive, thankfully. One of the other guys was an entrepreneur. At a certain point, he started renting his room out too. The third roommate eventually moved out. So that's how we got our first empty apartment. Eventually I had maybe 15 or 20 apartments. 

I got to meet a lot of international travelers from all over the world. I loved listening to their stories, hearing about their unique backgrounds. So I called a friend from college named Rami Zeidan. We started Life House on this idea of getting people together, big open communal spaces—no front desks, none of this tacky, weird, old hotel stuff. And the business ended up growing to the point where now Life House manages dozens of hotels all around the country. Today we're the largest hotel management company in Cape Cod and Nantucket.

So this was New York City in 2013 – what was the hardest thing about "making it" there? (queue Frank Sinatra)

At the time, New York City was not very entrepreneur friendly. There was no better way to scare people, and make them feel incredibly uncomfortable, than telling them you're a first-time founder. They're like, "Oh, wow. You've been unemployed for a couple of years now. What's going on?" There was so much social pressure for me to go work at a bank or something. That was probably even tougher than the financial pressures.

There was so much social pressure for me to go work at a bank or something. That was probably even tougher than the financial pressures.

What about pressure from family? How did your parents feel about your becoming an entrepreneur instead of following in their footsteps as doctors?

I'm from Belarus. My parents and I moved to Canada when I was young, then to the US. Entrepreneurship was always fascinating to me, but you can imagine it was a pretty foreign concept for my parents, who grew up in the Soviet Union. They're both doctors, and love school. They were pretty bummed I didn't follow them into medicine. For them, it felt very risky for me to go do something that none of us had any clue about at the time.

What drove you to move from hospitality to founding a company that provides care for children with autism?

[Life House] was doing very well, but I wasn't feeling fulfilled. I leaned on my experiences getting ABA therapy for ADHD, and conversations with my father who's a pediatrician, to start Elemy. When you see someone that's neurodiverse, you tend to focus on the negatives—like, "man, this person's never going to be able to make anything of themselves." For me, growing up, I couldn't sit still in a chair. But, I can think through a few things at the same time, which has served me really well. What my parents did well was help me find the positives. Being honest about your strengths, areas where you can improve, and not over-focusing on the negatives—that's really the underlying story of Elemy.

For me, growing up, I couldn't sit still in a chair. But, I can think through a few things at the same time, which has served me really well. What my parents did well was help me find the positives. Being honest about your strengths, areas where you can improve, and not over-focusing on the negatives—that's really the underlying story of Elemy.

You've gone from telecommunications to hospitality to autism care. What’s the thread? 

A lot of it was influenced by looking at broken situations in America and just being decisive about tackling them. All three industries are highly regulated, and there's not a lot of incumbents that are technology forward. So that was the cohesion across all of these businesses: we want to have consistency, better experiences, and better access.

Given both of your parents work in healthcare, are they involved in Elemy today?

My father is one of a couple hundred pediatric infectious disease specialists in the US, and one of maybe five that are MD PhD. Children with autism are more predisposed to various illnesses. So, particularly during COVID, there's a question of, “Do I take the risk of having a caregiver come to my house? Do I take the risk of still driving my child to a clinic knowing that he or she might get COVID, and it could be pretty bad if they do?” We started educating families around the in-home option in those situations. The majority of ABA therapy is provided in a clinic setting in America. We made the case for a hybrid approach, offering  a telehealth experience with a therapist and an in-person caregiver. 

What’s something no one would guess about you?

On the professional side of things, people think of me as a salesperson. I'm actually pretty inward-oriented for most of the day. I try to spend a lot of time thinking and not being on phone calls. People are surprised when they see my calendar that it's relatively empty. 

Headline Asia

The Story of Headline

Featured Topic in Aisa

Stefan Ytterborn

Alex Mifsud

Nicole Clark and Alon Shwartz

Daniel Nathan

Yury Yakubchyk

Stefan Ytterborn

Alex Mifsud

Nicole Clark and Alon Shwartz

Daniel Nathan

Yury Yakubchyk

Stefan Ytterborn

Alex Mifsud

Headline Asia Series

Deposit Solutions + Raisin: Rivals Build Giant

A Match Made in Delivery Heaven: Fancy + Gopuff

All About DAO (Part I): Decision Making in a Decentralized World

All About DAO (Part II): DAO as Investment Vehicles

All About DAO (Part III): DAO as an Operational Project

All about DAO (Part IV): Strengths & Weaknesses of DAO

All About DAO (Part V): DAO Infrastructure and Tools

Deposit Solutions + Raisin: Rivals Build Giant

A Match Made in Delivery Heaven: Fancy + Gopuff

All About DAO (Part I): Decision Making in a Decentralized World

All About DAO (Part II): DAO as Investment Vehicles

All About DAO (Part III): DAO as an Operational Project

All about DAO (Part IV): Strengths & Weaknesses of DAO

All About DAO (Part V): DAO Infrastructure and Tools

Deposit Solutions + Raisin: Rivals Build Giant

A Match Made in Delivery Heaven: Fancy + Gopuff