Decentralized AI infrastructure company OpenGradient announced it raised $8.5 million in seed funding. To accelerate open-source AI, OpenGradient democratizes model ownership, streamlines AI deployment, and enables universal access to AI.
OpenGradient’s end-to-end decentralized platform provides scalable AI computing on-chain, ensuring verifiability and attribution while enhancing security for AI deployment and hosting. Its multi-layer technology stack includes an EVM-compatible blockchain with its innovative heterogeneous AI compute architecture (HACA) and a proprietary library of feature-rich tools to support and scale secure AI workflows on-chain.
OpenGradient enables developers to easily build and deploy optimized decentralized applications (dApps). And OpenGradient’s web portal and SDK allow Web2 developers to leverage its AI stack without the complexities of blockchain while enjoying a decentralized infrastructure’s security and composability benefits.
The $8.5 million seed round included participation from a16z Crypto Startup Accelerator (a16z CSX), SV Angel, Coinbase Ventures, SALT Fund, Symbolic Capital, Foresight Ventures, and angel investors, including Balaji Srinivasan (ex-Coinbase CTO), Illia Polosukhin (NEAR Founder), Sandeep Nailwal (Polygon Founder), and more. OpenGradient is also currently participating in the Fall 2024 a16z CSX program in New York City.
This funding round will be used to continue building out the decentralized infrastructure, deploying solutions and tools for AI and Web3 developers, and advancing applied ML research to grow the open-source AI ecosystem on blockchain. And OpenGradient’s testnet is expected to be available to developers in Q4 2024.
KEY QUOTES:
“Developers today face significant hurdles when developing secure software for custom AI models, often grappling with developing a variety of complex cryptographic or hardware solutions into their stack. OpenGradient revolutionizes this approach, offering near-instantaneous model deployment and secure inference of AI models in mere seconds.”
-CEO and Co-Founder Matthew Wang
“OpenGradient is ushering in a new era for decentralized AI by developing infrastructure to support the next generation of intelligent applications. They’ve built a truly disruptive tech stack at the intersection of AI and blockchain, and we’re excited to support such an innovative and talented team.”
-Principal at SV Angel Mike Liu
