Pantera Capital and Framework Ventures have led an $85M seed funding round for Sentient, an open-source artificial intelligence (AI) development platform.
The funds will be used to support the development of Sentient’s open AI platform and the recruitment of engineers, as stated in an announcement on July 2.
The venture is an AI research organization that aims to facilitate the monetization of open-source models and data by AI developers, like other ecosystems, such as the Super Intelligence Alliance.
“We are currently in a period that resembles the closed-source software landscape of 1995.” Currently, a few organizations wield immense influence due to the dominance of closed-source AI.
Despite open-source AI development, the company asserted that it fails to provide developers with adequate incentives and does not allow them to participate as equal stakeholders.
Sandeep Nailwal, the founder of Polygon; Pramod Viswanath, a Princeton professor and co-inventor of the technology that powers the 4G wireless standard; and Himanshu Tyagi, a professor at the Indian Institute of Science, are the individuals behind the venture.
Sentient’s underlying blockchain protocol and incentive mechanism will guarantee economic alignment for developers, thereby facilitating the development of open artificial general intelligence.
According to Joey Krug, a partner at Founders Fund, “At present, it is possible to replicate models without paying for them, and Sentient is committed to resolving this incentive issue that undermines the adoption of open-source AI.” Sentient’s testnet will be accessible during the current quarter of 2024.
Robot Ventures, Symbolic Capital, Dao5, Delphi, Primitive Ventures, Nomad, Hack VC, Arrington Capital, Hypersphere, IDG, Topology, Protagonist, Folius, Sky9, Canonical Crypto, Dispersion Capital, Mirana, Foresight, HashKey, Spartan, and other investors also contributed to the seed round.
The popularity of decentralized artificial intelligence is increasing.
In 2024, there has been a significant increase in the number of enterprises that integrate AI and blockchain technologies.
Ora, which raised $20 million from Polychain, HF0, and Hashkey Capital in June, is one of the protocols attempting to integrate AI into the blockchain. Through its initial model offering, the protocol is developing a technology for tokenizing AI models.
Based on an ERC-20 token, the mechanism will grant ownership and participation in the revenue generated by an AI model to any individual who purchases a token.
In recent months, there has been a substantial increase in venture capital investments in blockchain enterprises. In the first quarter of 2024, investors invested $2.49 billion in 603 deals, a 29% increase in funding, and a 68% increase in deal count from the previous quarter, as per data compiled by Galaxy Research.
