Cardano Community Approves 50M ADA for the Draper Dragon Orion Fund

# Cardano Treasury Approves 50M ADA for the Draper Dragon Orion Fund The Cardano community has voted to approve the first tranche of the Orion Fund, a six-year venture fund managed by Draper Dragon and supported administratively by the Cardano Foundation. The governance action reached the required thresholds from both DReps and the Constitutional Committee at the start of epoch 623 and will be enacted at epoch 624, releasing 50 million ADA from the Cardano treasury. View the governance action on Cexplorer Note: The returns, TVL targets, and financial projections in this article are taken directly from the Orion Fund proposal. They represent what Draper Dragon has proposed and committed to, not confirmed outcomes. All investments carry risk and actual results may differ materially. ## What Is the Orion Fund The Orion Fund is a professionally managed venture fund focused on Cardano-native and Cardano-integrated companies. It is managed by Draper Dragon, with Draper University serving as the acceleration partner. The Cardano Foundation acts as constitutional administrator and provides ecosystem and technical support, but has no role in managing the fund or making investment decisions. The fund's stated focus areas are Real-World Assets and institutional DeFi. The proposal sets a longer-term ambition of contributing to growing Cardano's TVL from around $300 million to $3 billion or more over the fund's six-year life, though this is a target, not a guarantee. ## What This Vote Actually Approved This vote approved only Tranche One: 50 million ADA, equivalent to approximately $15 million at an assumed ADA price of $0.30. The long-term plan targets a total fund size of at least $80 million, with $75 million intended to come from the treasury across three tranches and at least $5 million from external limited partners. Each future tranche will require a separate governance vote and community approval. Nothing beyond Tranche One is approved by this action. The breakdown of how Tranche One capital is intended to be deployed is as follows: approximately $10.75 million into direct equity and token investments in Cardano startups, approximately $1.9 million into growth capital including exchange listings and ecosystem integrations, and approximately $1 million into startup acceleration and talent programs run through Draper University. ## What the Fund Plans to Invest In The proposal outlines Real-World Assets and institutional DeFi as the primary investment targets. More specifically, the fund intends to back revenue-capable projects across RWA, payments, stablecoins, institutional DeFi, consumer applications, and compliance-ready dApps. The investment stage breakdown is roughly 25% pre-seed, 33% seed, and 40% late seed and pre-series A. Unlike Project Catalyst, which operates on a grant model, the Orion Fund takes equity and token positions in companies. Projects need to be company-structured and investment-ready to be considered. No specific companies or projects have been named yet. More details are expected as the fund becomes operational. According to the proposal, the fund uses a waterfall model. The treasury is to be repaid all invested capital before Draper Dragon as general partner receives any profit share. After full capital repayment, net profits are proposed to be split 80% to Arouet Holdings and 20% to Draper Dragon. The proposal targets a roughly 3x gross return on invested capital, which under their illustrative model would return approximately $175 million to the treasury before expenses on a $67.5 million deployment. It's important to highlight these are targets and projections from the proposal, not guarantees. ## The Structure Behind It Arouet Holdings is a foundation company domiciled in the Cayman Islands that was set up specifically to act as the limited partner on behalf of the Cardano treasury. It has no other purpose. It will have three directors: one independent, one from the Cardano Foundation, and one community-elected director to be added if the fund is funded. The community director role will go through a public nomination and voting process. Draper Dragon will convert the ADA to USD via a custodian and contribute it to the fund. Any excess from the 20% price buffer built into the withdrawal, if ADA performs above the assumed $0.30 price, will be applied to reduce future tranches. ## Who Is Draper Dragon Draper Dragon is a cross-border venture fund focused on blockchain, with offices in Silicon Valley, Toronto, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Bangalore. Founded in 2006, it is the leading digital asset fund within the Draper network. Previous investments include Ledger, Gemini, EtherFi, and Centrifuge. The extended Draper network, which includes Tim Draper's broader investment history, has backed companies like Coinbase, Tesla, Skype, Baidu, and Robinhood. Draper University, the acceleration partner, has run similar programs for Algorand, Tezos, VeChain, and Stellar ecosystems, with over 5,000 alumni from 103 countries and more than 3,500 startups launched. More information about the Orion Fund is available at orion.draperdragon.com and on X @OrionFund . ## Transparency and Oversight The fund commits to a public dashboard with real-time ecosystem KPIs including TVL growth, on-chain usage, developer onboarding, and portfolio metrics. Quarterly fund reports and ecosystem roundtables are also planned. Certain deal-level information such as valuations and terms will remain confidential as is standard for regulated venture funds, but all public disclosures will focus on verified on-chain metrics. ## Summary This is the first time Cardano's treasury has been used to back a professionally managed venture fund with an equity-first model and a repayment obligation to the treasury. Whether the Orion Fund delivers on its targets will become clearer over the coming years as investments are made and reported. The next decision point for the community will come in 2027, when Draper Dragon returns with a separate governance action for Tranche Two.