Upside Raises $5 Million in Funding

Upside is an INVESTMENT DAO and INCUBATOR, supporting Australian Founders to buidl Global Web3 Organisations, raises $5 million in funding.

Upside raises $5 million in funding to promote the top Web3 businesses, with an emphasis on Australia. The platform also unveiled the first recipients of its investment financing to that goal.

Australia’s most well-known Web3 Creators

The Upside DAO team includes some of Australia’s most well-known Web3 creators and collaborators, including Apollo Capital, Banxa, Caleb & Brown, FTX Australia, Ren Protocol, Synthetix, Chainflip, and ZedRun (Virtually Human Studios). Mike Bacina (Piper Alderman), Luke Bortoli (Afterpay), and Chloe White are also members of the DAO (Genesis Block).

The organization as a whole emphasizes Australia’s outstanding track record in the Web3 and digital assets industries. The DAO was formed to capitalize on this position of power by reinvesting its members’ aggregate resources, expertise, and connections back into the Australian ecosystem. Upside is not your typical investment fund. It has been founded as a DAO, which implies that the members coordinate investment choices and guidance for portfolio teams.

Upside’s initial investments include:

• Reservoir – a developer platform that enables next-generation NFT products to be delivered to market.
• PrePO – a decentralised synthetic assets exchange allowing anyone, anywhere to gain exposure to any pre-IPO company or pre-token crypto project
• Mirror Planet – a rich metaverse world overlayed onto real streets and buildings using Google Maps
• Astro Lab (France) – next generation yield farming using automated, multi-chain strategies

Management Quote

“The unification of Australia’s best Web3 expats is a great starting point. To truly capitalise on this generational opportunity broad collaboration will be require. The show of unity from our most seasoned industry participants is a strong signal of the collective’s intention to re-invest into the Australian ecosystem,” said Kyall Walker, Co-Founder and GM of Upside DAO. “Many of our members have had to go abroad to scale their companies and protocols. We want the next wave of great Australian Web3 founders to build global companies from right here.”

“Our investment into local infrastructure such as a Community Hub will go a long way to engaging other sectors. We are in the process of building out a 700m2 co-working, digital gallery and activation space in Cremorne Melbourne. This will act as a melting pot for the likes of Financial Information Services, Gaming and the Arts to come together and support Web3 founders who are building innovative products for consumers.”

Upside Launches Publicly

In recent months, cryptocurrency and the technology sector as a whole have lost a lot of value. Though these variables may limit retailers’ willingness to invest, they typically create the appropriate conditions for identifying and supporting entrepreneurs who are establishing the next great company.

As Apollo Capital Chief Investment Officer Henrik Andersson points out, “A bear market is a perfect time to launch the investment DAO as capital dries up and teams need to look at institutional capital to fund their business ambitions. We are excited to join Upside DAO and work with other like-minded Australian crypto natives to find, back and support the next generation of Web3 founders to build great products for users.”

Upside launches publicly with an impressive portfolio of early investments under its belt across DeFi, Web3 tools, infrastructure, Metaverse and GameFi. “There is certainly no shortage of great founders right now building the essential tools and emerging products / services that will grow the Web3 industry globally. The teams we’ve backed are all exceptional, driven and resourceful. We believe they’ll onboard and uplift many Web3 users in their respective domains.”