Velora Growth Committee: Reflections and Recommendation from the Governance Task Force

[SEEDGov]

TLDR;

Season 1 of the Velora Growth Committee - VGC marked the DAO’s first coordinated effort to structure growth initiatives through an elected group.

The Committee helped establish valuable relationships, strengthen visibility, and test collaborative processes, but it also surfaced key structural limitations, particularly the overlap with the Contributor Points framework, coordination friction among parties, and the absence of dedicated technical bandwidth.

After assessing these outcomes, the Governance Task Force recommends not renewing the VGC for a new season.

Instead, growth efforts should transition into delegate-driven and incentive-aligned initiatives, such as the Delegate Activation Program for VLR Growth (DAPG), Strategic Alignment discussions, and the CP framework within the Delegate Incentive Program.

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1. Overview and Context

The Velora Growth Committee (VGC) was established under PIP-63.

Season 1 members were elected by DAO vote and began their six-month term in mid-May 2025.

The Committee’s mission was to explore how VeloraDAO could expand its ecosystem through coordination rather than centralization: building bridges, strengthening relationships, and identifying growth opportunities.

Season 1 coincided with a pivotal moment for Velora: the rebranding from ParaSwap, the Miro Project, and the launch of the VLR token.

These developments reshaped priorities and provided the right context to evaluate the DAO’s long-term growth structure.

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2. Main Contributions

Throughout its mandate, the Committee played a constructive role in connecting stakeholders, shaping Velora’s visibility, and supporting the early foundations of its growth narrative.

Ecosystem Bridges

The Committee successfully seeded strategic relationships with Kleros and Futarchy.fi, opening a new frontier for experimentation around governance infrastructure and decision-making applications.

This collaboration materialized in PIP-72, a proposal that set the groundwork for integrating Velora within a prediction-based governance model: positioning the DAO among the first to explore futarchy-driven mechanisms.

These partnerships established a foundation for continued collaboration and technological experimentation in the coming months.

Grant and Growth Initiatives

The Committee prepared and submitted the Optimism Season 8 Grant Proposal (200 000 OP), designed to stimulate VLR utilization, cross-ecosystem liquidity, and participation within the Superchain.

The application was rejected, but the delegates who worked on it are currently working to reapply under the parameters established by the Grants Council.

The initiative represents an important milestone in aligning Velora’s growth strategy with broader L2 ecosystems and incentive programs.

Liquidity Strategy and Treasury Coordination

Following these initiatives, VGC member @Citizen42, together with @Avantgarde, submitted PIP-XX: Deploy Liquidity into Liquity V2 VLR Pools.

The proposal redeploys existing DAO treasury assets to seed liquidity on Aerodrome (Base), leveraging potential OP grant and BOLD incentives.

The Velora Community Mirror

The launch of Velora’s first DAO-owned publication space provided a home for educational content, governance analysis, and community storytelling.

It remains a key component of Velora’s communication infrastructure and public identity.

Community Engagement

Committee members consistently joined community calls, represented the DAO in ecosystem discussions, and bridged communication among internal working groups and external partners, reinforcing Velora’s visibility across governance networks.

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3. Key Learnings

Coordination and Alignment

The Committee’s cross-functional nature led to coordination challenges, particularly with overlapping scopes among service providers.

Clearer synchronization could have improved execution speed and reduced duplicated effort.

Contributor Points Overlap

The coexistence of the Contributor Points system and the Committee’s incentive model introduced ambiguity.

Because several VGC members were also delegates, activities such as content creation, proposal drafting, or outreach often qualified under both frameworks, creating potential double attribution.

This revealed a structural issue: growth-related work cannot easily be isolated from the DAO’s broader incentive system, and future models must consolidate both.

Technical Bandwidth

The absence of an embedded technical contributor limited the Committee’s ability to assess feasibility or prototype integrations. In that sense, the VGC was limited to exploration stages and was unable to proceed with implementation due to the lack of dedicated resources.

Future initiatives should include accessible technical expertise to connect strategic intent with practical implementation.

Role Definition and Accountability

Certain responsibilities evolved informally.

The Treasury Manager’s transition from the Committee to a dedicated treasury role and the GTF’s undefined facilitation scope blurred accountability lines.

Future governance setups should emphasize clear mandates, decision layers, and accountability from inception.

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4. Recommendation and Transition

After evaluating Season 1 outcomes, the Committee members and advisors consider that the current VGC structure has fulfilled its initial purpose but is not the optimal model for Velora’s next stage.

Accordingly, the Governance Task Force (SEEDGov) recommends not renewing the Velora Growth Committee for a new season.

Growth coordination should instead transition into decentralized, delegate-driven initiatives such as the Delegate Activation Program for VLR Growth (DAPG), Strategic Alignment discussions, and the Contributor Points (CP) framework within the Delegate Incentive Program.

These mechanisms:

• empower delegates and community members to lead growth ideation;
• align incentives directly through CP-based recognition;
• focus on practical, token-centric strategies; and
• ensure DAO resources are directed toward high-impact, verifiable outcomes.

This transition enables Velora to evolve from a closed committee model to an open, incentive-aligned governance system, better suited for experimentation and adaptive growth.

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5. Closing Remarks

The Velora Growth Committee – Season 1 served as a valuable pilot in DAO coordination.

It provided visibility, fostered relationships, and strengthened Velora’s strategic narrative during a critical migration phase.

Its conclusion marks not a discontinuation but an evolution toward a broader, delegate-driven governance framework aligned with the DAO’s maturity.

The Committee’s members and collaborators are thanked for their time, engagement, and contributions.

Their collective work provides the foundation for Velora’s next stage of growth—one led by community initiative, structured incentives, and shared responsibility.

[boardroom]

Thanks for this wrap-up @SEEDGov. We support everything laid out in this post and we look forward to continue working with the DAO under these newer mechanisms/frameworks.

[Tane]

Thank you for the comprehensive reflection and clear recommendations regarding the future of the VGC. We appreciate the candid assessment of both the Committee’s achievements and its structural limitations.

@SEEDGov

The absence of an embedded technical contributor limited the Committee’s ability to assess feasibility or prototype integrations.

How will the transition to delegate-driven initiatives address this gap? Are there plans to allocate specific technical resources or support to ensure that more complex growth initiatives can be executed effectively?

[citizen42]

Thanks @SEEDGov for putting together this reflection and thanks to everyone in the community who supported the VGC during Season 1.

As one of the members, I’m genuinely grateful for the opportunity. It wasn’t always easy (far from it!) and there were plenty of challenges along the way, but it was also extremely insightful, engaging and a real privilege to collaborate with such capable and committed people across the DAO.

I agree with the conclusion that the VGC served its purpose at the right moment.
At the same time, the shift toward a more open, delegate-driven framework under DIP v2 feels like the right evolution.
It’s clearer, fairer and more aligned with how Velora actually operates today, especially with Contributor Points acting as the unifying incentive model. I think many of the frictions we experienced inside the VGC showed precisely why consolidating these structures makes sense.

I’m also personally excited for what comes next: instead of a closed committee, we now have a system where any delegate or contributor can take initiative, propose, experiment and receive CP recognition directly. That feels more “DAO-native” and much more scalable.

So once again, thank you to those who voted us in, thank you to the teammates who carried the load with me and thanks to the GTF for the thoughtful review and guidance.
Learned a lot, met amazing people and I think Velora is heading into this next phase with a stronger alignment overall.

Looking forward to continuing to contribute in this new structure.

[Ignas]

Appreciate the work VGC has contributed to Velora’s growth. I agree that restructuring makes sense to avoid overlapping responsibilities with other delegate roles.

That said, this transition may create a short term loss of coordination or unclear ownership of existing relationships. Does VGC have a structured handover process planned to maintain continuity during the transition?

[Mehdi]

As a delegate who isn’t part of the VGC and isn’t a GTF manager, I may not see these challenges the same way they do, but I fully trust both the GTF and VGC on this. The proposed changes make sense to me, and I appreciate the work put into this.

[Benibauer3]

Thanks @SEEDGov for the transparent recap and clear reasoning. The first season of the Growth Committee clearly delivered value in terms of visibility, community bridges and laying groundwork for future growth. I support the decision to transition into a delegate-driven, incentive-aligned model: it feels more scalable, fair and in tune with what a true DAO should be. Excited to participate under the new framework (DAPG + CP-based incentives) and help push Velora forward.

[todayindefi]

Thanks for the retro, @SEEDGov. Big props to @citizen42 and the rest of the VGC for the work in Season 1—it was a necessary experiment to figure out what works.

I’m fully onboard with switching to the delegate-driven model. It feels much cleaner to have everything under the Contributor Points system rather than having a separate committee structure that overlaps with what active delegates are already doing.

One practical thing to add to the mix, specifically regarding the “coordination” aspect:

With the committee gone, we’re moving from a single point of contact to potentially 10+ delegates doing outreach. The risk here is “collision”—multiple delegates hitting up the same partner or protocol with different pitches.

To solve this without adding bureaucracy, maybe we just need a simple “Active Leads” thread or a pinned post where delegates can “claim” a specific initiative or partnership discussion? That way, we don’t step on each other’s toes, and we know who is owning what.

Also, +1 to @Tane’s point on the technical bottleneck. If the Committee struggled to get dev time, individual delegates definitely will too. We might need a “Dev Bounty” pot or a retained dev that delegates can “book” time with to ship these growth ideas. Otherwise, we’ll just have a lot of nice strategy slides but no integrations.

Excited to see how this new structure plays out!

[jameskbh]

Thanks for the report!

It was an important experiment to help to structure non-technical efforts to help Velora to grow. The learnings will help to shape any other initiative that could complement the systems current in place (namely the delegates actions aligned with the activation program).

Thanks to everyone involved!

[GozmanGonzalez]

Thanks for putting this together. I found the reflection on the Growth Committee’s first season really helpful because it shows what worked, what held things back and where the DAO needs to evolve.

What stood out most to me is how much value the Committee created even with all the limitations. The new partnerships, the early work on futarchy, the push for grants and the effort to give Velora a stronger public voice all show that coordinated growth is possible when people commit to it. At the same time, the issues around overlapping incentives, slow coordination and the lack of technical support make it clear that the old structure would have struggled to scale.

The recommendation to shift growth into delegate-led efforts makes sense to me. Growth feels more sustainable when the people driving it already hold responsibility in governance and have incentives that tie directly to outcomes. The idea of strengthening the Delegate Activation Program and letting the CP system guide recognition feels like a cleaner, more transparent model than trying to keep a separate committee running beside it.

As someone looking to take a more active role, I appreciate the direction this creates. It sets a path where anyone who is willing to show up consistently, work with others and deliver visible outcomes can contribute meaningfully without waiting for a committee seat. It also gives delegates a clearer sense of what “growth work” should look like moving forward.

Overall, this was a good first experiment for Velora. The lessons here give us something solid to build on, and I’m excited to see how the next phase helps the DAO move with more clarity, better incentives and a lot more room for community-driven ideas to take shape.

[SEEDGov]

Thank you all for your feedback and comments.

In response to similar comments, we would we believe that allocating funds, setting dev bounties, or booking dev time in advance could not be the most appropriate approach. First, hiring or booking a developer without a concrete need may result in expenses that ultimately prove unjustified if these resources are not used. Additionally, allocating funds or establishing a bounty could trigger debates about when those resources should be used, whether the expenditure is justified, whether the requested amount is reasonable, and who decides when funds should be released. This would effectively require forming a grant committee or some kind of structure, which although it could be small, would still introduce bureaucracy and additional costs for something whose necessity is not yet clear.

At this stage, our view is that the best path forward is the following: if a delegate or group of delegates presents an initiative that requires developer services, they should propose or suggest who can develop it, a cost estimate, and request funding from the DAO for that specific initiative. This would allow the DAO to review, analyze, and vote on the proposal while considering the associated costs and development requirements from the beginning. The entire process, from discussion to vote, should take no more than two weeks. Even if a delegate cannot access this full information on their own to submit a final proposal, they can start a post in the Research and Discussion section and request collaboration from other community members. It is also possible to contact us or other delegates privately to request assistance or recommendations in this regard.

And if it is observed in the DAO that delegates are consistently active in this type of initiative and efficiently achieve integrations or similar outcomes, then it might make sense to consider establishing a dedicated funding allocation with an appropriate framework. However, at this point, when we do not yet know whether such a need will arise, we view it as a premature and maybe inefficient use of resources.

It is also worth noting that Wakeup Labs is both a delegate and a service provider and has deep familiarity with the protocol. For this reason, they may be a good option for any delegate or group of delegates looking to develop an initiative that requires technical work. They can help assess feasibility and costs, and potentially collaborate on a comprehensive joint proposal covering all aspects, including taking charge of the potential development, requesting funds from the DAO to cover these services.

From the GTF, we offer to serve as a bridge, support coordination efforts, and even assist in the development or drafting of these any potential proposals that may originate from the delegates.

@todayindefi

To solve this without adding bureaucracy, maybe we just need a simple “Active Leads” thread or a pinned post where delegates can “claim” a specific initiative or partnership discussion? That way, we don’t step on each other’s toes, and we know who is owning what.

We really like this idea. It is easy and quick to implement, and it can help not only to avoid overlaps and inform initiatives that a delegate may be working on, but also to coordinate efforts with other delegates who can provide some assistance with it.