0G Labs raises $35M pre-seed funding from over 40 crypto investors for on-chain AI

The money will go towards building what 0G Labs calls the first modular AI chain.

Web3 modular infrastructure firm 0G Labs announced the successful completion of a $35 million pre-seed funding round on March 25. 

According to a press release from 0G Labs, the round received participation from more than 40 crypto-native institutions, including Hack VC and Stanford Builders Fund.

The funding will be used to build out 0G Labs’ vision of creating a full-stack blockchain-based solution for training, deploying, and running artificial intelligence models. Per the press release, one of the major advantages of its platform is speed over current state-of-the-art solutions such as Ethereum’s smart contract network.

Ed Roman, Managing Partner at Hack V, lauded 0G Labs a pioneer in the area of on-chain generative AI infrastructure:

“0G is positioned as the premier modular data availability solution for web3, including the next frontier of crypto-powered AI networks. Their data availability technology has shown to achieve speeds 1000x+ faster and cheaper than ETH L1, which is simply phenomenal. We’re proud to be their partners in this journey, and can’t wait to see their ecosystem thrive as the team pushes forward towards main-net.”

Pre-seeding is typically the first funding round a startup receives. This $35 million dollar emergence round represents one of the largest initial startup funds for a company operating at the intersection of Web3 and artificial intelligence (AI).

For comparison, OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT and Dall-E, raised $120,000 in its pre-seed round on Aug. 22, 2016. In the time since, OpenAI has ridden the success of its generative AI technology to a current valuation of around $80 billion as of Feb. 2024.

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0G Labs’ website states that one of the products it’s developing is called “Uni-Chain.” Accoridng to the site, this is an architecture for Web3 that seamlessly connects networks into a unified metaverse where users can transact with users and services on any chain through through single wallet access.

“Our modular technology will enable frictionless interoperability between chains,” reads the site, “while ensuring security, eliminating fragmentation, and maximizing connectivity for a weightless and open meta-uni-verse.”