Sahara AI is a company focused on making AI open, equitable, and beneficial for everyone across all stages of the development cycle. The company recently raised $43 million to scale its operations. This funding was co-led by Binance Labs, Pantera Capital, and Polychain Capital, with participation from Samsung, Sequoia Capital, Matrix Partners, dao5, Geekcartel, Nomad Capital, SCB 10X, Canonical Capital, Mirana Ventures, Foresight Ventures, Dispersion Capital, Aegis Ventures, Alumni Ventures, and Tangent Ventures, and others.
Sahara AI’s decentralized AI blockchain platform enables everyone from individual developers to large enterprises to participate in and benefit from AI advancements. And this ensures that all contributors are fairly compensated, sovereignty of data and models are maintained, and AI assets can be created, shared, and traded securely all while preserving privacy and promoting inclusivity.
The company is also backed by many renowned individuals and enterprises, including: Laksh Vaaman Sehgal (Vice Chairman, Motherson Group); Rohan Taori (Research Scientist, Anthropic); Teknium (Co-founder, Nous Research); Vipul Prakash (CEO, Together AI); and Elvis Zhang (Founding Member, Midjourney)
Since its founding in April 2023, Sahara AI has grown exponentially and is now trusted by over 35 leading tech innovators and research institutions, including Microsoft, Amazon, MIT, Motherson Group, and Snap.
Sahara AI CEO Sean Ren has over a decade of AI expertise with notable awards recognizing his research and innovation in the AI space like Samsung AI Researcher of 2023, MIT Tech Review 35 Under 35, and Forbes 30 Under 30. Complementing Ren’s AI skills is co-founder Tyler Zhou (a former Binance Labs investment director) contributes crucial blockchain and growth acumen.
The company will expand the team, enhance its technology, and grow the ecosystem with this funding round.
KEY QUOTES:
“At Pantera, we believe in the future of decentralized AI, offering opportunities for personalized products to be built without centralized oversight. Sahara AI’s platform is designed to meet these challenges, providing an ethically designed and universally accessible infrastructure that enables individuals and enterprises to leverage AI’s full potential without compromising on privacy or sovereignty. We are excited to support Sean, Tyler and the rest of the team as they build towards this new collaborative AI economy.”
- Lauren Stephanian, General Partner of Pantera Capital
“Binance Labs is dedicated to empowering founders in Web3 who have the potential to build innovative tech solutions and create sustainable, lasting impact. We look forward to backing Sahara AI as they pioneer a decentralized AI blockchain platform, reshaping the future of AI to be more transparent, secure, and accessible for everyone.”
- Yi He, Co-Founder of Binance and Head of Binance Labs
“Since our inception, our goal has been to create a future where AI is ethical, transparent, and accessible to all through AI sovereignty and open technology. With the help of our notable investors and partners, this latest funding is a testament to why it is necessary to establish a robust, decentralized provenance infrastructure within today’s rapidly evolving AI-first world.”
- Sean Ren, co-founder of Sahara Labs—the driving force contributing to Sahara AI
