CIG Labs | Syndicate: How to Innovate in Web3 and DAOs?
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CIG Labs | Syndicate: How to Innovate in Web3 and DAOs?
Synciate is not a mass crowdfunding tool, but an investment tool based on social trust.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: Laoduo Daniel, CIG Researcher (Twitter @LaoDuoEth)
Editor: Arain, Core Member of CIG (Twitter @arainqinqin)
Produced by CIG Labs
A rich ecosystem of tooling protocols has emerged around the development of Web3 communities and DAOs. Among them, Syndicate—a protocol backed by A16Z—launched a new social product called "Collective" on September 8, which could bring transformative innovation to the evolution of Web3 communities and DAOs.
To explore this further, Laoduo Daniel initiated and hosted the "Web3 Alpha" Twitter Space series within CIG DAO, organizing a discussion themed “Syndicate: How to Innovate Web3 and DAOs,” featuring Ian Lee, Co-founder of Syndicate; Feng Liu, Founding Partner at Bold Ventures; and Bill, Co-founder of MCN Ventures.
Most people know Syndicate as a project that raised $28 million in funding from top-tier investors including A16Z. Many first encountered Syndicate through its initial product—the Investment Club—a social investment tool leveraging Web3 and blockchain technology to innovate traditional investing. With this tool, Web3 communities, investment groups, or even just a group of friends can transform an Ethereum wallet into a collaborative investment DAO in minutes and at minimal cost, significantly reducing time and expenses compared to conventional offline investment clubs.
Notably, on September 8, Syndicate unveiled its second major product: Collective, a social/community protocol.
- Collective is a social protocol built on Syndicate that allows anyone to create on-chain communities using ERC-721M NFTs. Since ERC-721M is an open-source standard, Collectives can evolve alongside communities, integrate with other Web3 tools, and establish connections based on various community roles.
- Additionally, COLLECTIVE connects individuals with shared interests and expertise, forming networks for discovering and sharing opportunities.
Below is a summary of the "Web3 Alpha" discussion:
Syndicate Is Not a Crowdfunding Tool, But a Social Trust-Based Investment Platform
Ian shared the original motivation behind Syndicate. Having spent eight years in venture capital, he found the industry highly inefficient. In the U.S., setting up an investment club offline involves lengthy legal procedures lasting several months and costing up to $200,000.
In contrast, Syndicate’s Investment Club aims to fully democratize and decentralize investing, enabling users to set up an investment club in seconds for just a few cents (on Polygon).
However, investing isn't just about capital—it's also deeply rooted in personal relationships. To truly transform the investment landscape, it's not enough to reinvent financial protocols; social protocols must also be reimagined. This is precisely why Syndicate developed Collective, a community-focused product. With both financial and social protocols as foundational layers, Syndicate can build applications that drive revolutionary change across the investment world and Web3 communities.
Feng Liu shared his perspective on Syndicate. He had been aware of the team early due to their strong industry background. During last year’s DeFi summer, there was growing discussion about whether investment activities could be decentralized, prompting multiple teams—including Syndicate—to experiment. In practice, many small groups already gather on platforms like Discord or WeChat groups to hunt for alpha. As such, many investors were eager to try Syndicate to form decentralized investment clubs.
After the launch of Investment Clubs, Feng and his friends created a Club to test the product. However, he observed that informal investments among close-knit circles could already be efficiently managed via simple spreadsheets or Web2 tools like WeChat groups—often more smoothly than the current on-chain process. For native Web3 products, is such complex on-chain interaction really necessary? Syndicate may need to identify more practical and compelling use cases.
Bill first noticed Syndicate by tracking A16Z’s investment moves and quickly tried out the Investment Club, inviting members from his community to contribute $10 each. However, the product limits clubs to 99 investors, and refunding participants proved cumbersome—requiring manual processing one-by-one. Thus, he believes Investment Clubs are still in early stages and require significant improvements, particularly in governance mechanisms for investor protection.
Laoduo also tested the Investment Club and discovered that once funds are deposited into a club account, they go directly into the creator’s personal wallet (or a multisig), not a custodial wallet. This raises concerns: after investing, do contributors lose control over their funds? What if the club creator turns out to be a scammer—would the money be unrecoverable?
Ian addressed these concerns:
- · The 99-investor cap exists due to regulatory requirements. The U.S. SEC imposes clear rules on investment clubs, prohibiting public fundraising and limiting membership to fewer than 100 individuals.
- · Investment Clubs are not investment funds. They’re not designed for mass crowdfunding but rather for trusted groups of acquaintances to co-invest. Ian emphasized that users should never deposit money into a club run by someone they don’t know personally—the product is built on social trust.
- · Product rules align with U.S. regulations, and external partners help ensure compliance. At the same time, the team faces diverse global user demands, so prioritizing feature development is critical to gradually meet needs across regions and user types.
- · Regarding investor exit and refund difficulties, the team is actively developing new features to streamline withdrawal and refund processes.
Building High-Frequency Investment Scenarios Through Social Networks
As previously mentioned, investing operates on both capital and interpersonal networks. For example, VC firms consist of founders, LPs, and expert partners—many of whom interact beyond mere financial transactions. When a startup receives funding, it gains not only capital but also non-financial support such as access to valuable networks.
With Collective, an investment firm or investment DAO can rapidly and affordably connect its social network on-chain. Within about a week of launch, hundreds of Collectives had been created, with over 40,000 participants joining various community clusters. These communities are already interlinking to form new investment DAOs. The vision is clear: start by building a community, then determine how to structure an investment DAO and allocate funds, and finally create an Investment Club to execute joint investments. This represents Syndicate’s strategic roadmap.
Feng Liu noted that Investment Clubs are inherently low-frequency tools. Integrating them with higher-frequency social products could boost engagement—a promising direction. However, since Collective is still in its infancy, it’s too early to evaluate its success. Numerous projects have already experimented with using NFTs as community access gates.
Syndicate’s approach with Collectives and Investment Clubs is relatively vertical, focusing tightly on specific interests or incentives. It remains to be seen whether this focused model can capture broader enthusiasm for Web3 social experiences. Notably, Syndicate is currently running a user activation campaign offering limited-time free minting of a Genesis NFT, granting early community membership in Syndicate Collective.
Bill envisioned a gamified future where investment behaviors—though infrequent—are made engaging through entertainment and social layers. For instance, Bill, Feng Liu, and Laoduo could form an investment club where their profile pictures dynamically display linked NFTs from OpenSea, changing daily. Using the ERC-721M standard via Collective, all members could sync the same NFT as their avatar. Additionally, a Chrome extension could allow hovering over Bill’s avatar to reveal which investment club he belongs to, what NFTs he owns, etc. Ian confirmed that Syndicate is actively moving in this direction, with some features already implemented.
Airdrop Expectations Remain — One of the Most Anticipated Web3 Infrastructure Protocols
On September 15 at noon, Ethereum successfully completed the Merge—an important milestone for the Web3 industry. This Space session coincided with that day, prompting Laoduo to ask about its impact. According to Ian, the Merge had little direct effect on Syndicate itself, primarily improving base-layer efficiency and reducing energy consumption. Long-term, increased Ethereum adoption will benefit the broader ecosystem.
“In the short to medium term, the Merge doesn’t change anything for Syndicate. Long-term, there may be regulatory considerations, but that remains uncertain. Therefore, Syndicate plans to expand across multiple chains, initially focusing on EVM-compatible Layer 2 solutions like Arbitrum and Optimism,” said Ian.
Laoduo named Safe multisig wallet and Syndicate as his two favorite Web3 infrastructure protocols. Safe has already launched its token and conducted an airdrop—so when will Syndicate follow suit?
Ian did not give a direct answer, stating that Syndicate remains an early-stage startup and has not yet considered launching a token or conducting an airdrop.
Feng Liu added that Syndicate is still refining its product and functionality, so there's no urgency regarding tokenization. Without a disclosed tokenomics model, discussing an airdrop is premature.
Nevertheless, Bill believes decentralization is an inevitable path for all Web3 projects, and most will eventually adopt token-based governance. That said, sybil attacks—where individuals create dozens or hundreds of wallets to farm airdrops—are typically undesirable unless the project intends to inflate metrics for investors.
During the AMA segment, DeFi KOL Teacher Fengmi joined the call to ask about cross-jurisdictional regulatory challenges and Syndicate DAO’s architecture and roadmap. If you're interested in these topics or want deeper insights into Syndicate’s details and future plans, feel free to listen to the full Twitter Space recording. Visit @CIG_DAO’s official Twitter account for the replay, or click here.
Laoduo believes Syndicate’s Investment Club—and especially the new Collective product—holds transformative potential for Web3 and DAO development. However, as the product is newly launched, whether its future social features and user experience will deliver meaningful enhancements remains to be seen.
Finally, Laoduo’s nonprofit research series, Web3 Alpha Twitter Space, launches every Thursday. Feel free to leave topic suggestions on his Twitter feed.
Disclaimer: All content discussed in this article is for academic and informational purposes only and should not be construed as financial or investment advice.
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