The intersection of artificial intelligence and blockchain is becoming a major focus for venture capitalists and innovators globally. In June, several companies developing solutions based on these technologies revealed significant capital raises, many in the form of seed rounds.
One notable example is Sentient, which secured $85 million in funding to create an open-source artificial intelligence platform. The funding round was led by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, Pantera Capital, and Framework Ventures. Sentient is an AI research organization aiming to allow developers to monetize their open-source models and data, akin to the Super Intelligence Alliance ecosystem.
Another startup, ORA, utilizes AI models and blockchain to generate revenue for developers. In early June, ORA raised $20 million from Polychain, HF0, and Hashkey Capital. The company is developing a mechanism that allows anyone who purchases a token to own and share the revenue generated by an AI model.
“I am particularly excited about opportunities at the convergence of AI and Crypto, although even that distinction will sound dated in a few years,” said Cosmo Jiang, Pantera Capital’s portfolio manager, in an interview with Cointelegraph. Jiang believes that in the future, every business will use AI as a tool, just as the internet has become ubiquitous over the past 20 years.
Pantera Capital is also an investor in Bittensor, a decentralized platform for building and using AI models. Bittensor operates like a marketplace where users can create, train, and share AI models, earning rewards for their contributions to the network. The investment was made in early 2024, although the exact amount was not disclosed. Jiang noted that it represents a significant position in their portfolio. Pantera has allocated $200 million to AI projects.
This edition of Cointelegraph’s VC Roundup highlights additional startups that raised capital in June.
Lombard raised $16 million in a seed funding round to develop a Bitcoin restaking ecosystem in collaboration with Babylon. Polychain Capital led the round, with participation from dao5, Nomad, Foresight Ventures, and ABCDE. Major exchanges, including OKX and Bitget, also contributed. Lombard’s flagship product is LBTC, a liquid and yield-bearing representation of BTC that can be used as collateral across decentralized finance protocols, unlocking liquidity from BTC staked on Babylon’s protocol. The startup’s team includes former executives from Argent, Coinbase, and Maple Finance.
Source: Lombard
Redacted secured $10 million in a funding round co-led by Spartan Group, with participation from Saison Capital, Animoca Brands, and Polygon Ventures. Redacted is developing a Web3 entertainment ecosystem that integrates blockchain and AI to create an “entertainment datasphere.” This platform will allow users to play, trade, and watch content while earning rewards through a process known as farming. The Redacted leadership team has experience from companies such as Tesla, Bank of America, Kraken, and LEGO. More than 50% of the tokens have been allocated to the community and ecosystem, with advisors from Saison Capital, Confiction Labs, King/Candy Crush, Amazon, and Microsoft assisting in its development.
RedStone closed a $15 million Series A round led by Arrington Capital, with participation from SevenX, IOSG Ventures, Spartan Capital, White Star Capital, Kraken Ventures, Amber Group, Protagonist, gumi Cryptos, and Apeiron (Samara Group), among others. RedStone’s total value secured (TVS) has surpassed $4 billion. The startup boasts over 110 clients across 60 chains, including Pendle, Morpho, and Venus. In January, RedStone became the sole oracle integrated with TON (The Open Network) and secured a $500 million staking commitment from EtherFi in April. It provides data feeds to Ethereum, zkSync Era, Avalanche, Base, Polygon, Linea, Celo, Optimism, Arbitrum, Fantom, BNB Chain, Blast, and Bitcoin layer-2s such as Merlin Chain and BOB.
Covalent announced the closing of a $5 million strategic funding round led by RockTree Capital, with participation from CMCC Global, Moonrock Capital, and Double Peak Group. The funds will be used to expand Covalent’s operations in Asia and support long-term data availability in regions including China, Korea, and Singapore. Covalent has been working on its modular data infrastructure layer, Ethereum Wayback Machine (EWM), since 2019, and has integrated with over 225 blockchains and 240 million wallets. Covalent’s structured data pool is used for decentralized AI training. Former BitMEX CEO Arthur Hayes serves as Covalent’s strategic adviser.
Outlier Ventures announced the six startups selected for the DePIN Base Camp accelerator program. The 12-week remote program is a collaboration between Outlier, peaq, and Borderless Capital. The selected startups are Aydo (United Arab Emirates), Kaisar Network (Vietnam), Roam Network (Finland), ROVR (Hong Kong), TouchBrick (USA), and YOM (UK). These startups are working on projects in Internet of Things hardware networks, decentralized computing and AI, wireless network optimization, digital twin technology, cybersecurity, and cloud gaming and metaverse. During the program, the teams will receive support from Outlier on product roadmap, community building, entity structuring, and fundraising, while peaq will share its expertise in building and running a DePIN. Each team will also receive investment from Borderless Capital.
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