Full analysis of the AI ​​layout of crypto venture capital in 2024: What projects have top VCs such as a16z, Binance, and Coinbase invested in? ｜Annual Inventory

Author: Grapefruit, ChainCatcher

Editor: Nian Qing, ChainCatcher

In the past two months, the outbreak of Agentfi has once again demonstrated the great potential of the integration of "AI + Crypto" (also known as encrypted AI). In the recently released encryption industry trend forecast for 2025, well-known industry institutions such as a16z Partners, Messari, and Blockworks Lianchuang also mentioned that the combination of "AI and encryption" will be the mainstream hot spot in the encryption market in 2025. Encryption technology The intersection with AI is expected to achieve breakthrough progress and promote the rise of a large number of AI projects based on tokens.

Looking back on 2024, the encrypted AI market has ushered in an unprecedented investment boom. Major investment institutions have poured in, and the amount of investment has increased sharply. In this field, top venture capital institutions in the encryption industry such as Grayscale, Coinbase Ventures, Binance Labs and a16z have all actively participated in the layout of the "Crypto+AI" project.

In particular, institutions such as Delphi Venture, CoinFund, Coinbase Ventures, Binance Labs, and a16z not only "call for orders" but also practice it, showing their firm optimism in the field of encrypted AI through multiple investments.

On December 24, the "2025 Crypto Outlook Report" released by Messari showed that crypto AI is the most eye-catching emerging investment theme in 2024. The total financing in this field has achieved approximately 100% year-on-year growth, and the number of financing rounds has also increased significantly. An increase of 138%. This article will systematically sort out for you the layout of the top crypto VCs in the Crypto+AI field in 2024, as well as the fundamentals of the specific projects they invest in.

**Crypto investment institutions such as Grayscale, Delphi, Coinbase, and

Binance Labs have all deployed “Crypto+AI”**

Capital is the core force that drives industry progress and captures cutting-edge projects. Its capital flows and public investment activities have always been regarded as important vanes for insight into market trends. The encrypted AI market will also usher in an investment boom in 2024. Major investment institutions are rushing in. Investment enthusiasm for encrypted AI projects is unprecedentedly high, and the amount of investment is rising sharply.

Many of the industry's top crypto venture capital institutions, such as Grayscale, Delphi Venture, Coinbase Ventures, Binance Labs, and a16z, have announced their active participation in the investment layout and strategic deployment of the "Crypto+AI" project.

At the beginning of this year (January), Tommy, the co-founder of Delphi Digital, publicly stated on the social media X platform that he was highly optimistic about the combination of Crypto and AI and encouraged relevant project developers to contact him. He also revealed that Delphi Ventures has invested in multiple cryptocurrency AI projects, including decentralized GPU project io.net, AI blockchain OG Labs, and AI venture capital fund Mythos Ventures. In October, its R&D department Delphi Lab also launched an AI accelerator jointly with the NEAR Foundation, aiming to promote the development of projects in the intersection of AI and Web3.

As a venture capital fund established by a16z specifically for the encryption field, a16z crypto is often regarded as an industry benchmark in the encryption field. Its relevant person in charge has publicly stated on many occasions that it supports the integration of encryption and AI projects. As early as March, media reported that a16z was raising a new fund of up to US$6 billion. The fund will focus on investing in the field of AI and plans to earmark 15% of the funds for the development of AI infrastructure and applications. . Among the 21 projects selected for the a16z Crypto Autumn Crypto Startup Accelerator (a16z CSX) announced in September, 5 projects are related to crypto AI, including Skyfire, decentralized AI network OpenGradient, GPU project Kuzco, and Designed for Enterprises Blockchain AI solutions Banyan and PIN AI. Many AI Agents, including the GOAT (truth_terminal) project that became popular in October, have received cryptocurrency payment support from a16z crypto partners.

Entering the second half of the year, more crypto venture capital institutions have announced their entry into the field of crypto AI. Some institutions have set up special AI funds, and some have increased their investment in crypto AI projects.

First, on June 19, Pantera Capital announced that it was raising a new US$1 billion fund, of which more than US$200 million would be used to invest in AI-related projects. Cosmo Jiang, the fund’s investment manager, said that in the next 10 to 20 years, all crypto companies will become AI companies , and Pantera Capital has invested 15% to 20% of capital in its early-stage funds into AI-related blockchain projects. middle.

In August, Grayscale launched the "Grayscale Decentralized AI Fund", a new decentralized AI trust fund focusing on the field of AI, which mainly invests in AI-related project tokens. Projects selected in the first phase include AI project tokens such as Bittensor (TAO), Filecoin (FIL), Livepeer (LPT), Near (NEAR) and Render (RNDR), and will be adjusted every quarter based on holdings. As of December 23, Grayscale AI Fund’s holdings have covered Bittensor (TAO), Filecoin (FIL), Near (NEAR), Render (RNDR) and The Graph (GRT), with the total value of assets under management reaching approximately 1.5 million. Dollar.

Also in August, Max Coniglio, investment director of Binance Labs, publicly stated its recent strategy: committed to promoting the development of AI-driven decentralized applications DApps, and has successively invested in the decentralized AI network Sahara AI and AI robots PlatformMyShell. Max Coniglio believes that the combination of AI and blockchain is a force that cannot be underestimated. If the two can work together to move towards open source protocols, they will jointly create a new era of prosperity. In a recent interview, Binance co-founder He Yi said on the integrated development of AI and encryption: AI technology is triggering a productivity revolution, and its influence is far beyond imagination. Blockchain technology mainly changes labor relations and interests. distribution model, and AI is a revolutionary technology that directly improves user productivity.

In October, Coinbase Ventures also issued a document stating that its investment strategy has shifted from single cryptocurrency investment to in-depth layout of "Crypto+AI" projects. Its person in charge, Hoolie Tejwani, pointed out that there is a natural complementarity between encryption technology and AI. The two technologies are closely connected like the double helix structure of DNA, and together they lay a solid foundation for future digital life. In fact, as early as August, Coinbase Ventures had participated in the investment of AI Agent payment projects Skyfire and Payman.

The collective optimism of this series of crypto venture capital institutions in the crypto AI field undoubtedly sends a strong signal: In the future market cycle, venture capital institutions will launch large-scale and far-reaching layouts and bets in the crypto AI field.

According to the 2024 Q3 encryption investment and financing report released by Messari, encryption venture capital institutions injected more than $213 million in AI projects in this quarter, not only a month-on-month increase of 250%, but a year-on-year increase of 340%.

In addition, there is a clear trend in Messari's "2025 Crypto Outlook Report" freshly released on December 24: investors are increasingly interested in the intersection of encryption and AI, and crypto AI has become the most dazzling technology in 2024. Emerging investment themes. Not only did the total amount of financing in this field achieve approximately 100% year-on-year growth, but the number of financing rounds also increased significantly by 138%. It is particularly worth mentioning that well-known Web3 accelerator projects such as a16z CSX and Beacon are mostly in the field of encrypted AI . This data means that more and more venture capital investment companies are pouring into this emerging field, and the addition of capital will undoubtedly further accelerate the rise of the encrypted AI track.

**AI investment strategy of crypto institutions: Preference for

decentralized AI infrastructure and application products**

According to the 2024 investment data of crypto venture capital institutions on the Rootdata platform, a16z, Delphi Venture, Coinbase Ventures, Pantera Capital, Binance Labs, Hack VC, Polychain, etc. have all participated in the investment and financing of multiple crypto AI projects in 2024. In particular, Coinbase Ventures, Delphi Venture, Binance Labs, Hack VC, etc. are particularly active and have demonstrated their firm optimism in this field through multiple investments.

Coinbase Venture began to increase investment in encrypted AI projects in August, investing in Payman and Skyfire, the infrastructure of two AI Agent payment projects; Binance Labs and a16z Crypto have participated in multiple investments through direct investment and incubator programs. an early project.

Binance Labs is the venture capital and incubation arm of Binance. The projects it invests in are often used by the crypto community as a wealth code to lurk early currency listings, and they have profound influence. According to the encrypted AI investment project disclosed in 2024, the strategy adopted is that the project is first selected into the MVB incubator, and then further participates in investment. For example, the invested NFPrompt (NFP), MyShell, etc. are all projects that came out of the MVB incubator, and most of them are AI application products.

a16z Crypto’s parent fund a16z has a deep investment history in the AI ​​industry and has participated in hundreds of millions of dollars in financing for many AI star companies such as Open AI, AI chatbot Character.AI, and AI pharmaceutical company Genesis Therapeutics.

However, according to Rootdat data, judging from a16z crypto direct investment data in 2024, there are not many encrypted AI projects in which a16z directly participates in investment in the field of encrypted AI . Only the AI ​​Agent development network Axal and the AI ​​virtual human creation platform Balance are disclosed. .fun two projects, and Axal is also invested by a16z CSX. It focuses more on participating in the a16z CSX incubator. Among the 21 projects selected for the a16z Crypto Autumn Crypto Startup Accelerator (a16z CSX) announced in September, 5 projects are related to crypto AI, including Skyfire, Decentralized Global AI network OpenGradient, GPU project Kuzco, blockchain AI solution Banyan and PIN AI designed specifically for enterprises.

In the recently released 2025 trend outlook, a16z emphasized that the intersection of encryption and artificial intelligence will become the focus of the next year. He is especially optimistic about the development of encryption AI Agents and believes that AI Agents can own and manage their own wallets and operate on the chain. Transactions such as node verification are a truly autonomous AI chatbot rather than human control, and can realize functions such as independent verification.

ChainCatcher sorted through the project data of investment institutions and found that most of the projects participating in investment in 2024 are AI technology facilities and application products. Among them, Polychain, Pantera Captial and other institutions tend to invest in AI infrastructure, such as decentralized AI networks and GPU tokens. and AI data, etc.; while Hack VC and Binance Labs prefer AI application products.

List of encrypted AI projects planned by Coinbase **, a16z and other

venture capital institutions in 2024**

Coinbase Venture ’s 2024 Crypto AI Project Investment List

1. AI Agent payment tool Payman

Payman is an AI Agent payment agency solution specially built for AI models and developers. It was founded in May this year and is committed to building a payment infrastructure for AI and human collaboration. Developers can integrate Payman's payment API interface to enable their AI Agents to automatically handle payment transactions between AI and humans. For example, whether they are AI developers who want to pay for human help, or they want to be paid for cooperation with AI. Human beings who get paid can use AI Agent to automate the payment process between the two parties by integrating the Payman API.

The core advantage of Payman's products is to provide AI developers with a complete set of AI Agent payment agency systems, which can handle all payment processes autonomously and intelligently, greatly simplifying operational complexity. Payman not only supports fiat currency payments, but also supports the use of cryptocurrencies as a means of payment, such as USDC.

On August 8 this year, Payman announced the completion of a $3 million pre-seed round of financing, with investors including well-known venture capital institutions such as Visa, Coinbase Ventures and The Spartan Group. In addition, the project was selected into Binance Labs’ MVB accelerator program as early as July.

Coinbase Ventures’ favor for Payman is not only reflected in its financial support, but also in its repeated support for the project in the public eye. At its Devcon2024 offline event held in November this year, Payman joined hands with virtual idols owned by Korean entertainment giant HYBE to jointly demonstrate how to use USDC stable currency to achieve seamless payment between AI and humans.

It is also worth mentioning that Tyllen Bicakcic, the co-founder of the project, once held senior developer relations positions in the Uniswap Foundation and the Flow public chain.

2. AI Agent payment system Skyfire: Visa in the AI ​​world

Skyfire is an AI Agent payment solution system also invested by Coinbase Ventures. The product was founded by former Ripple executives in June this year. It has designed a complete transaction process for AI Agent to conduct a complete transaction independently without any manual intervention, such as purchasing and completing any goods required to complete specified tasks.

As we all know, AI Agent will be able to realize functions such as autonomous shopping, ticket booking, route planning, and application listing. However, ordinary AI Agents cannot independently complete the final payment process, such as payment of bills, air tickets, website hosting fees, etc. Skyfire is designed to solve this pain point. It has built a complete cryptocurrency payment system for AI Agents, allowing AI Agents to independently perform financial operations such as payment and collection without any human intervention. For example, when a user provides an AI Agent with funds, it can use the funds autonomously to meet the user's needs without manual intervention, just like a real assistant using cash or a credit card to buy coffee. Therefore, Skyfire is regarded as the "Visa" payment center in the AI ​​field, supporting AI Agents to autonomously handle financial affairs such as payment, collection, and savings.

In terms of financing, Skyfire also performed well and received strong support from many well-known crypto capitals. In August this year, it successfully completed an $8.5 million seed round of financing, attracting investment from well-known institutions such as Circle, Ripple, and Gemini. In September, Skyfire was selected into the a16z Autumn CSX accelerator. In October, Coinbase Ventures and a16z Crypto CSX announced a $1 million injection of new strategic funding into Skyfire.

As of December 21, Skyfire’s public cumulative financing amount has reached US$9.5 million.

3. Decentralized AI data network Vana

Vana is a decentralized data network that aims to create a platform that allows users to tokenize and trade their personal data and AI models. This project originated from a research project at MIT in 2018 and is committed to building a data pool network owned by users, so that users not only truly own and control their own data, but also build AI models independently and freely decide the use of data. Usage methods and obtain corresponding economic returns by contributing data.

Vana has built a decentralized data market for users. Users can use smart contracts to independently control their social data. Whenever the data is used, users can automatically receive rewards. For example, users can list themselves on platforms such as Google and Reddit. The high-quality data generated on the platform is provided to AI developers for model training and profit from it. This not only effectively solves the problem of lack of training data for AI models, but also opens up a new way for users to earn income through their own data.

On September 18, Vana announced the completion of US$5 million in strategic financing, led by Coinbase Ventures. In April this year, Vana revealed that it had received US$18 million in Series A financing led by Paradigm in October 2022. This financing had never been announced before, and said that its cumulative financing amount had reached US$20 million.

As of December 21, Vana’s cumulative financing reached US$25 million.

On December 13, Vana (VANA) was listed on Binance Launchpool.

4. Decentralized AI network OpenGradient

OpenGradient is committed to creating a decentralized AI network that supports developers to create, distribute and deploy AI models and applications in an open and permission-free manner. OpenGradient not only provides developers with supporting tools for AI development, but also supports the safe and seamless integration of AI workflows into web3 applications, and can also achieve decentralized and universal access to AI models.

Currently, OpenGradient is building an EVM-compatible blockchain network that allows developers to deploy AI models by using Solidity smart contracts. Considered the "HuggingFace" of the Web3 world. GitHub for AI developers, Hugging Face is an open source model library that supports users to share various machine learning models. It is called "Github in the AI ​​industry".

In September this year, OpenGradient was one of the 21 companies selected for the a16z Crypto Fall Crypto Startup Accelerator (CSX).

On October 10, OpenGradient announced the completion of a US$8.5 million seed round of financing, with participation from investment institutions including a16z CSX, Foresight Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, and Symbolic Capital.

5. Decentralized AI model production factory Pond

Pond is building a decentralized AI model network that allows any user to easily create their own AI model and tokenize it to obtain revenue. It is regarded as a "decentralized AI model production factory."

In the Web2 world, there is a data modeling and analysis competition platform Kaggle, which supports developers to compete to build the best AI model. However, the creator does not have the final ownership rights. Pond hopes to solve this problem and not only provide developers with a series of tools to create AI models. The data and other infrastructure required for the model also allow creators to own, control and tokenize their own AI models, which is regarded as "an improved version of Kaggle in the Web3 world".

Unlike most projects based on the LLM model, Pond is based on a large-scale GNN graph neural network to perform real-time statistics and predictions on on-chain data. Compared with LLM, it is better at processing and generating information. Pond based on GNN is better at mining. To understand the relationship between data and extract valuable information from it, we can use the on-chain data native to the encryption industry, and learn and predict on-chain behavior through technologies such as graph neural networks. Many new business logics have been derived from behavioral predictions, such as token price predictions, AI-enhanced MEV and DeFi strategies.

On November 7, Pond announced the completion of a $7.5 million seed round of financing from investment institutions including Archetype, Delphi Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, etc.

a16z Crypto **and a16z CSX accelerator’s 2024 crypto AI project

investment list:**

1. AI Agent development network Axal

Axal is committed to building a verifiable AI Agent development network for any task. It provides users with a complete set of AI Agent creation tools, allowing users to create their own AI Agent intelligent systems by stating intentions.

In October, Axal announced the completion of US$2.5 million in pre-seed financing, led by CMT Digital, with other participants including a16z Crypto Startup School, Escape Velocity, IDG Vietnam and Artichoke Capital.

At the same time, Axal launched its flagship product Axal Autopilot, an AI Agent-driven trading automation platform that provides users with personalized trading strategies, including price tracking, on-chain trade execution, and revenue management.

2. AI virtual human creation platform Balance.fun ( EPAL )

Balance was originally a Web3 experience infrastructure launched by the E-PAL game companion platform in February this year, aiming to provide a smooth Web3 transition for Web2 users. The Balance platform introduces an AI-driven system as a core element, supporting users to create personalized AI virtual companions that can participate in games, learning, entertainment and even productivity tasks to adapt to personal preferences, behaviors and needs.

In September this year, E-PAL disclosed that it had successfully completed two rounds of financing led by a16z and Galaxy Interactive, with a total financing amount of US$30 million. In November, Balance.fun announced that it had raised more than $10 million in sales from institutions through early node sales, with participating institutions including Animoca Brands, Amber Group, GSR Markets, etc.

Currently, Balance.fun is selling nodes at a price of $599 per node. According to the roadmap, the token ETP is expected to be issued in January 2025.

3. Decentralized personal AI network infrastructure PIN.AI

PIN AI aims to create an open AI network with unrestricted access to massive contextual data, allowing AI builders to create a variety of useful personal AI applications. As we all know, the reasoning of AI models is limited by the input data, but currently due to privacy reasons, a lot of data exists in users’ personal devices such as mobile phones and computers. PIN AI hopes to mobilize these personal data and use it as a private AI application. Support users to create private AI applications according to their own needs, allowing AI developers to provide very daily and practical AI services such as shopping, organizing travel, and planning finances.

The main goal of the PIN protocol is to enable an open ecosystem of personal AI applications. Through three foundational layers: Personal Data (focused on privacy and data ownership), Personal AI (useful and trustworthy companion AI on private devices), and External AI (an open market for AI services).

Enable AI applications to access user contextual data and match user intent to specialized external AI, while always protecting user privacy.

On September 10, PIN AI announced the completion of a $10 million pre-seed round of financing. a16z CSX, Hack VC, Blockchain Builders Fund (Stanford Blockchain Accelerator) and other institutions participated in this investment.

Binance Labs ’ 2024 Crypto AI Project Investment List:

1. AI content creation platform NFPrompt (NFP)

NFPrompt (NFP) is an AI-driven NFT content generation platform that can provide creators with AI content creation work such as images, videos, pfp, music, etc., and supports users to easily create stunning works through indicator words (Prompt). And generate NFT with one click to obtain ownership confirmation. It was selected for Binance Labs’ sixth season incubation program in September 2023. In December last year, the token NFP was listed on Binance. In March this year, it was announced that it had received investment from Binance Labs.

2. Decentralized AI data network Privasea

Privasea, formerly known as Nulink, is mainly engaged in privacy data calculations. It was selected into the Binance Labs fourth quarter incubation program as early as May 2022. It now provides solutions to the privacy issues of AI calculation data and can support the realization of data privacy and security during AI model calculations. In addition, the identity verification program ImHuman launched by it is similar in function to WorldCoin and supports the conversion of collected human biometrics into training data for AI models in a data privacy and security manner.

In March this year, Privasea announced that it had completed a US$5 million seed round of financing, with participation from Binance Labs and others;

3. AI knowledge sharing and search platform QnA3.AI (GPT)

QnA3.AI (GPT) QnA3 for short is an AI-driven Web3 knowledge sharing and search platform designed to provide users with accurate knowledge in the field of cryptocurrency. It not only provides information access and information acquisition, but also provides complex logical analysis functions for users to make decision-making transactions, etc. At the same time, it is also one of the Binance Labs sixth season incubation plan projects in September 2023. In February this year, the QnA3.AI token GPT was listed on OKX, and in March it was announced that it had received investment from Binance Labs.

4. AI robot platform MyShell

MyShell is building an AI consumption application layer that connects users, creators and open source AI researchers. By providing a complete set of AI agent robot creation tools, users can easily discover or create various applications or robots based on AI agent technology, such as voice. Chat robots, language learning assistants, image generation tools, etc. are also among the projects selected for the Binance Labs sixth season incubation plan in 2023. In December of the same year, it completed a US$5.6 million seed round of financing at a valuation of US$57 million.

In March this year, MyShell announced that it had completed a $11 million Pre-A round of financing from investment institutions including Dragonfly, Delphi Digital, Bankless Ventures, etc. In August, it was announced again that it had received further investment from Binance Labs.

5. Decentralized AI network Sahara AI

Sahara AI is a decentralized AI network infrastructure that facilitates AI assetization. It aims to help users deploy or build customized and personalized AI products, etc., and enable all participating contributors in the AI ​​chain to obtain fair attribution and award.

In August this year, Sahara AI announced the completion of US$43 million in financing, led by institutions such as Binance Labs, Pantera Capital and Polychain Capital.

In the 2025 roadmap released on December 24, Sahara AI stated that it has launched a data service platform and test network. Now users can receive rewards through data collection and annotation. The Sahara Chain main network will be launched in Q3 2025.

Pantera Capital ’s 2024 Crypto AI Project Investment List:

1. Decentralized AGI system Sentient

Sentient is committed to building a decentralized artificial general intelligence (AGI) platform through community contributions, aiming to compete with traditional closed-source AI development models such as OpenAI. Support AI model creators to tokenize them, and incentivize users to contribute and expand AI models by using Web3 technology to jointly build open source AI models contributed by the community.

In July this year, Sentient announced the completion of a US$85 million seed round of financing from investment institutions including Pantera Capital, Framework Ventures, Delphi Ventures, Hack VC, etc.

Delphi Digital ’s 2024 Crypto AI Project Investment List:

1. Decentralized AI operating system 0G Labs

OG Labs (full name Zero Gravity Labs) initially debuted as a modular AI blockchain narrative, stating that it has a scalable DA layer to support AI DApps. In March this year, 0G announced the completion of a $35 million Pre-Seed round of financing, with participation from investment institutions including Hack VC, Animoca Brands, Delphi Digital and others.

However, in November OG Labs announced that it had received $290 million in new funding, including a $40 million seed round and a $250 million token purchase commitment. 0G Labs co-founder Michael Heinrich said that once the 0G token is listed and circulated on cryptocurrency exchanges next year, the project will be able to withdraw funds from the token commitment.

At the same time, 0G Labs has transformed from a modular AI blockchain and is building a so-called decentralized AI operating system (dAIOS), aiming to enable the development of on-chain AI applications. The previously mentioned modular AI is just one of them. part of.

According to Lianchuang’s public statement, the mainnet release of the 0G protocol is expected to be in the first or second quarter of next year.

2. AI data collection platform Grass (GRASS)

Grass is a decentralized network resource sharing and redistribution DePIN platform developed by Wynd Network (decentralized Internet proxy network), allowing people to sell idle Internet bandwidth and network data.

Users can download the Grass Chrome browser plug-in to automatically share idle bandwidth and personal data and obtain additional rewards, similar to the new concept of using traffic and data to earn tokens. In addition, Grass will convert the collected personal data into AI data sets for developers to use for AI training. Therefore, Grass is also regarded as the data providing layer for decentralized AI.

In September this year, Grass announced the completion of Series A financing. It is reported that the valuation reached nearly one billion US dollars. Investment institutions include Hack VC, Polychain Capital, Delphi Digital, etc. The specific financing amount was not disclosed. On October 16, the Grass token GRASS was officially launched.

On November 25, Andrew Kang, a partner at Mechanism Capital, wrote that the development of AI has made data one of the most valuable commodities in the world. Grass has created a data pipeline that is beyond the reach of most AI companies through an encrypted incentive mechanism. At the current growth rate, Grass is expected to achieve a high level of 9 figures in revenue next year, or even exceed billions of dollars.

3. Decentralized AI network Allora

Allora, formerly known as Upshot, was originally an NFT stock price agreement. In February this year, it was renamed Allora and shifted from an NFT evaluation platform to a decentralized AI network.

The Allora platform can use multiple AI Agents to evaluate the performance of an AI model under current conditions through prediction tasks, and allocate rewards to the agents based on the quality of their predictions and evaluations. This incentive mechanism allows the model on Allora to continuously learn and improve, adjust as the market develops, etc.

In June, Allora announced the completion of $3 million in strategic financing for the decentralized artificial intelligence network Allora Labs. Investment institutions include Archetype, Delphi Ventures, CMS Holdings, etc. So far, the total financing of the Allora project has reached US$35 million.

4. Decentralized GPU project io.net (IO)

io.net is a decentralized AI computing power DePIN protocol that aims to solve the problem of insufficient computing needs in the fields of AI and machine learning by utilizing distributed GPU and CPU resources. It has built a two-sided market around chips. The supply side is the computing power of GPU and CPU chips distributed around the world, and the demand side is artificial intelligence engineers who want to complete AI model training or reasoning tasks. Its mission is to integrate millions of GPUs into its DePIN network.

In March this year, io.net announced the completion of $30 million in Series A financing from investment institutions including Hack VC, Multicoin Capital, Delphi Digital, Solana Labs, etc. So far, the project has raised a total of US$40 million in financing and has a valuation of US$1 billion.

In June, the io.net token IO was issued on Binance Launchpool; in October, the IO token was listed on Coinbase.

Hack VC ’s 2024 Crypto AI Project Investment List:

1. GPU tokenization platform Exabits

Exabits aims to unlock the over $1 trillion AI computing market by tokenizing physical GPUs into liquid financial assets that can be invested. By dividing GPU computing resources and tokenizing them, investors can purchase EGPUs representing GPU capacity as assets to earn income.

Currently, the Exabits platform has created a path to GPU-Fi (G-Fi), enabling GPU assets to flow between various financial platforms, enabling AI computing while improving the capital efficiency of the entire AI ecosystem. democratization so that anyone can participate in the AI ​​computing economy. According to official information, Exabits has provided enterprise-level GPU resources to EMC, Viggle, Lepton, IO.NET, Aethir, Akash, MyShell, Nebula Block, Game Killer and other companies.

In February this year, Exabits announced the completion of a seed round of financing, with the specific amount not yet disclosed. On December 11, Exabits announced the completion of a US$15 million seed round of financing with US$150 million. This round of financing was led by Hack VC. The financing brings Exabits’ total funding to $20 million.

2. GPU asset tokenization platform GAIB

GAIB, like Exabits, aims to unlock the trillion-dollar AI computing power market by tokenizing GPU assets and change the previous GPU financing methods. On December 13, it was announced that it had completed a US$5 million seed round of financing. Institutions participating in the investment include Hack VC, Faction, Aethir, etc.

According to official disclosures, GAIB has completed prototype development, will launch a pilot project this month, and plans to launch Alpha products and platform tokens in the next two months.

3. AI Agent infrastructure Theoriq

Theoriq is a modular and composable AI Agent infrastructure network launched by the Web3 machine learning platform ChainML. By providing relevant AI Agent development infrastructure tools, it supports any user to create his or her own AI Agent under code-free operation.

In May, ChainML, the developer of Theoriq, announced that it had raised US$6.2 million in an expanded seed round led by Hack VC.

Currently, Theoriq is in a test network state. According to the roadmap, it will be back online on the main network by the end of 2024.

4. AI image generation robot imgnAI

imgnAI is a consumer-oriented AI image generation robot. Users can automatically generate images through simple text commands. Its functions are similar to text-generated image model products such as Midjourney. However, users need to purchase the native token IMGNAI on the imgnAI platform to unlock more creative tools and functions.

In January this year, imgnAI announced the completion of a US$1.6 million seed round of financing, led by Hack VC, and also developed the Twitter AI Agent virtual human @Naifu (Naifu).

Polychain ’s 2024 Crypto AI Project Investment List:

1. Decentralized AI cloud platform Hyperbolic

Hyperbolic is building an open AI cloud platform and plans to integrate global GPU computing resources through blockchain technology to solve the industry bottleneck problem of AI model computing resource cost and allocation. To this end, Hyperbolic has built a dedicated AI inference service platform and GPU market. The former not only allows developers to call open source AI models through simple APIs, but also supports the training and fine-tuning of AI models. The latter can make GPU computing power like a commodity. Transaction supports users to rent or buy and sell GPUs.

On December 11, Hyperbolic announced the completion of a $12 million Series A financing, led by Variant and Polychain Capital. As early as July this year, Hyperbolic announced that it had completed a US$7 million seed round of financing, also led by Polychain Capital. So far, Hyperbolic’s total financing has reached US$20 million.

2. Talus Network, an L1 network specially designed for AI Agent

Talus Network is an L1 network infrastructure designed specifically for AI Agents, allowing any user to create their own exclusive AI Agent. It should be noted that the L1 network is designed based on the Move language and has not yet been launched on the main network. You can apply to join the test network.

On November 26, Talus Network announced that it had completed US$6 million in financing with US$150 million, led by Polychain Capital, and participated by Foresight Ventures, Animoca and others. As early as February this year, it also completed US$3 million in financing, also led by Polychain Capital. As of December 24, Talus Network’s total public financing reached US$9 million.

3. Decentralized AI data network OpenLedger

OpenLedger is a data blockchain for AI. It provides infrastructure for creating specialized language models for specific fields. It supports developers to create various AI Agents, chat robots, intelligent driving and other applications, and collects and analyzes data through its data network. Manage specific data and use blockchain technology to attribute it and reward model data contributors and creators.

On July 2, OpenLedger announced the completion of a US$8 million seed round of financing, led by Polychain Capital and others.

4. Decentralized AI Network Ritual

Ritual is a decentralized AI network infrastructure designed to create a system that can create, train, improve and trade AI models in an open and permissionless manner. The SDK it provides not only supports developers to seamlessly integrate AI models into any on-chain applications or protocols, but also allows users to use encryption schemes to fine-tune AI models, tokenize transactions and Reasoning training, etc.

On April 8, Ritual announced that it had received millions of dollars in Series A1 financing from Polychain Capital. The specific investment amount was not disclosed. As early as November 2023, it completed US$25 million in financing, including investments from Archetype.

The Ritual Chain testnet was launched on November 19. The testnet provides developers with a platform to build AI native applications.