Hi @lino, in the interest of transparency I will share here the main points that we discussed on our call about this proposal.
Although I do see the value in a Venture Initiative for Arbitrum, I am concerned that there is significant overlap with existing large scale initiatives such as the Gaming Catalyst Proposal (GCP) which is working with the Foundation to create an entity structure for the DAO.
As the GCP proposal states:
The GCP working group and Arbitrum Foundation are actively exploring entity setup to ensure DAO transparency while following the rigorous compliance guidelines that surround any entity focused on investments.
This effort also involves DAO members from the M&A, Ops Co, VCDAO, and other initiatives.
Furthermore, I am not sure that it’s the right approach to fund interviews and research (as you write, the budget is for a core team to conduct 2 months of interviews/research for 50k and then another 45k for thesis development). I would expect that for the level of caliber of the core team that you present (multiple times founders, multi exits, etc.), you would already come to the DAO with a thesis.
Lastly, as we discussed on our call, the core team that you propose to bring is new to Arbitrum DAO, therefore there is probably still reputation building to be done before a funding ask is made.