Internal doubts at Aave about Labs' past performance: raised $86 million in funding, holds 23% of tokens, and all six products have failed or incurred losses

ChainCatcher News: Aave ecosystem contributor organization ACI founder Marc Zeller released an open report revealing that since 2017, Aave Labs has received approximately $86 million in funding, including ICO, VC investments, and direct DAO grants. The founding team retained 23% of the LEND tokens during the 2017 ICO (later migrated 100:1 to AAVE).

The report states that before receiving DAO funds, Labs had a capital base of about $48.7 million, and later received approximately $37.4 million in grants from the DAO. Currently, they are applying for an additional $51 million through the “Aave Will Win” proposal.

The report mainly questions Labs’ past product performance, claiming that aside from the core protocol, six independent products launched have all failed or not achieved profitability. The RWA project Horizon, for example, once claimed to have surpassed $1 billion in scale, but the actual RWA collateral was about $135 million, heavily concentrated in a single asset. Since its launch in 2025, Horizon has generated about $216,000 in total revenue for the DAO, while incentives and related costs amount to approximately $5.25 million, resulting in a return on investment of about 24:1.

The report also notes that early core developers of Aave V1, V2, and V3 left Labs between 2021 and 2022. V3 is considered the last major protocol version led by Labs, with subsequent versions mainly driven by DAO service providers. In governance votes, a single large delegated address played a key role in passing the Horizon proposal, sparking community discussions about governance power centralization and fund utilization efficiency.

These controversies come as a new proposal for a $17.5 million product growth fund is under review, further fueling discussions within the Aave community about fund allocation, performance disclosure, and governance transparency.