Aave Labs Faces Scrutiny Over Product Performance and Funding Requests

On February 25, Marc Zeller, founder of the Aave ecosystem contribution organization ACI, released a public report detailing Aave Labs' financial history. According to BlockBeats, since 2017, Aave Labs has received approximately $86 million in capital support through ICOs, venture capital funding, and direct DAO grants. During the 2017 ICO, the founding team retained 23% of LEND tokens, which were later converted to AAVE at a 100:1 ratio. The report highlights that Labs had a capital base of around $48.7 million before receiving approximately $37.4 million in DAO grants. Currently, they are seeking an additional $51 million through the "Aave Will Win" proposal. The report raises concerns about the performance of Labs' products, noting that six independent products launched outside the core protocol have either failed or not achieved profitability. The RWA project Horizon, despite claims of surpassing $1 billion in scale, has an actual collateral scale of about $135 million, heavily concentrated in a single asset. Since its launch in August 2025, Horizon has generated approximately $216,000 in revenue for the DAO, while incurring costs of around $5.25 million, resulting in a return on investment ratio of about 24:1. Additionally, the report mentions that early core developers of Aave V1, V2, and V3.0 left Labs between 2021 and 2022, with V3.0 considered the last major protocol version led by Labs. Subsequent versions have been primarily advanced by DAO service providers. Governance votes have seen significant influence from a single large delegated address, sparking community discussions on governance power concentration and funding efficiency. These controversies arise amid the review of a new $17.5 million product growth grant proposal, intensifying discussions within the Aave community regarding fund allocation, performance disclosure, and governance transparency.