Investment spotlight: Unicorn DAO

Learn about MESH's latest investment in UnicornDAO, spun up by PussyRiot's Nadya Tolokonnikova.

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As the latest web3 initiative spun up by PussyRiot’s Nadya Tolokonnikova two months ago, UnicornDAO has drawn a considerable amount of attention. Via our membership seat as part of the founding team, we at Mesh are looking forward to collaborating with the activists and art lovers who form the backbone of the UnicornDAO community.

UnicornDAO invests in NFT art projects created by women, non-binary and LGBTQIA+ artists to engage and amplify these historically excluded artist groups in web3. The DAO was built using the Tribute DAO framework by Tribute Labs, a Mesh incubated company that has powered some of the most successful DAOs to date, including The LAO, FlamingoDAO and NeonDAO.*

Mesh was introduced to the project via our Head of People, Jill Moriarity, who met Nadya at pplpleasr’s ETHDenver fireside chat on “The Future of NFTs.” While Mesh is an avid DAO participant, we are especially excited about UnicornDAO because of its mission, which is intrinsically aligned to Mesh’s vision of building the new age of community in web3.

Based on UnicornDAO’s own research , art by women sells for 50% less than that of art by men, and as few as 5% of NFT sales go towards projects from female artists. In order to fulfill their mission of amplifying and investing in historically excluded artists in Web3, UnicornDAO does the following - first, the DAO collects and commissions art exclusively from women, non-binary, & LGBTQ+ artists through a well vetted committee of curators who are power players in web3 art. This provides potentially overlooked artists and projects with a platform and exposure to reach wider audiences.

Second, investors have supported DAO seats for ground-breaking artists such as Latasha, a musician and head of community planning at Our Zora, and Olive Allen, a NY based visual artist. Third, they host events to serve as gathering places for people to meet IRL. Their launch party at SXSW was a huge success (see photos below), and more of the like are expected to come - all eyes on NFT NYC this June.

Scenes from the UnicornDAO launch party at SXSW, 03/22

And finally, they offer a mentorship program partnering young female and non-binary artists with veterans in their field, thus expanding the mentees network and potentially catapulting their careers.

The DAO not only supports women and non-binary creators onboarding into Web3, it also provides them with a platform for their work and in some cases, the necessary funds to focus on creating art. While there are many collector DAOs out there, UnicornDAO is the only one whose mission of inclusivity is radically at the center of everything it does.

We at Mesh are proud to be supporting UnicornDAO in its mission which is integral to our own values, and to have Jill representing the Mesh in a membership seat as part of the DAO’s founding team. Given Jill’s background in and passion for art and activism, she was the obvious choice to represent Mesh’s voice in UnicornDAO.

At Mesh we believe that participation in DAOs is the future of work. Not only will DAOs radically transform workplace culture in decades to come, they will transform entire communities. Mesh’s relationship with DAOs began in 2016 (read ‘A brief history of ConsenSys Mesh and DAOs’, for more), and we continue to proudly incubate, accelerate and invest in new cutting edge DAOs today.

To follow along the UnicornDAO journey, you can join their discord here, or feel free to reach out to Jill Moriarity with any questions.