0G Labs, a company specializing in Web3 modular infrastructure, has announced the successful completion of a $35 million pre-seed funding round on March 25. Over 40 crypto-native institutions, including Hack VC and Stanford Builders Fund, participated in the round, as stated in a press release by 0G Labs.
The funding will be utilized to bring 0G Labs’ vision to life, which involves creating a comprehensive blockchain-based solution for training, deploying, and operating artificial intelligence models. The company claims that one of the key advantages of its platform is its speed, surpassing the current state-of-the-art solutions like Ethereum’s smart contract network.
Hack V’s Managing Partner, Ed Roman, commended 0G Labs for its pioneering work in the field of on-chain generative AI infrastructure. He mentioned that pre-seeding is typically the first funding round for a startup, and the $35 million raised by 0G Labs is one of the largest initial startup funds in the intersection of Web3 and AI. To put it into perspective, OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT and Dall-E, raised $120,000 in its pre-seed round back in August 2016. Since then, OpenAI’s generative AI technology has propelled its valuation to approximately $80 billion as of February 2024.
According to 0G Labs’ website, they are developing a product called “Uni-Chain,” which aims to create a unified metaverse where users can seamlessly transact with other users and services on any chain through a single wallet access. The website emphasizes that their modular technology will facilitate frictionless interoperability between chains, ensuring security, eliminating fragmentation, and maximizing connectivity for a weightless and open meta-universe.