How Vanta DAO is Making its Members ‘Owner-Operators’

Investment syndicate Vanta DAO is giving ownership of its million-dollar business to its DAO members, a process that will turn them into “owner-operators.”

“When the organization is returned to the NFT holders, we're able to have that owner mentality where we are trying to push forward, we're trying to find new deals, we're trying to become owner-operators of it [ourselves],” Vanta DAO member Jax Dwyer told Rug Radio’s FOMO Hour show.

Originally a private investment syndicate founded by Josh Field and Mike Grantis in 2021, Vanta focuses on bringing in crypto and AI-related seed-stage investments. Vanta DAO recently released an NFT collection that grants access to its syndicate and control over its future. Its founders believe that by turning over control of Vanta to its members, it’ll be able to scale at a faster rate than if they’d retained ownership themselves.

To become a VantaDAO member, users can buy the Vanta NFT on secondary NFT marketplaces such as OpenSea. Then, they join the Vanta Discord and verify that they’re a holder. Once verified, DAO members can apply for specific roles within the DAO or just sit back and get access to the deal flow that other DAO members provide. There are several chats for members to get involved in—even one focusing on meme coins for those with a higher risk tolerance.

Beyond the deal flow, Vanta researchers produce in-depth reports on all investments that go through the DAO. “They’ll have quick bullet-point summaries and a more in-depth PowerPoint that you can use to look at specific deals,” Jax told FOMO Hour.

There are several roles people can take on for those who want to contribute. Those who are “very in the trenches,” talking to founders and consistently researching and discovering new projects, can bring deals to the table, Jax said. “If those deals actually go through, you get a portion of the revenue.”

As Vanta decentralizes, Jax said, it will come to rely more on its members. "I am firmly a believer in decentralization,” he said, “because if you think about it, Josh and Mike, if they were to be the only owners, they would at the end of the day be kind of a bottleneck for the organization itself."

To avoid those bottlenecks and support Vanta's decentralized future growth, its founders will be replaced by a council of “elite members” who consistently bring in deals, “people that are constantly trying to push the DAO forward,” Jax said.

Vanta has brought in a number of opportunities for members in the past, including a seed-stage investment in Portal, HyperCycle, Tars Protocol, Nakamoto Games, Andromeda and more.

“One of the great things about Vanta is they're actually giving it back to the community,” Jax said. “They’re sitting on a $1 million-plus business, and they're like, ‘Hey, we're going to turn it into a DAO and actually give it back to the NFT holders themselves.”

To find out more, head to the Vanta DAO website, OpenSea or Twitter.