Sentient raises $85M in Seed Funding to Boost Open-Source AI Development
Summary:
Sentient, an AI research startup, raised $85 million in a seed funding round led by Founders Fund, Pantera Capital, and Framework Ventures. The firm plans to use the funds for hiring engineers and developing its open AI platform. Sentient aims to incentivize open-source AI development and envisions a decentralized model where economic benefits are guaranteed for developers. The tech industry witnessed a surge in startups capitalizing on the fusion of blockchain and AI technologies.
Sentient, a startup specializing in creating an open-source development platform for artificial intelligence (AI), has successfully raised $85 million in a seed funding round. This round was spearheaded by Founders Fund, owned by Peter Thiel, and also saw significant contributions from Pantera Capital and Framework Ventures. This information was made public on July 2. The raised capital will be allocated to recruit additional engineers and further develop the open AI platform called Sentient.
Sentient, an AI research enterprise, is enthusiastic about providing a platform that gives AI developers the opportunity to earn from their open-source models and data. This setup is in line with the models of other entities such as the Super Intelligence Alliance. Sentient has expressed concern regarding the current domination of closed-source AI since it vests enormous power with only a handful of organizations. The startup believes open-source AI development is lagging due to inadequate incentives for its contributors and this has prevented them from assuming an equitable stake.
Sentient has been launched by Sandeep Nailwal, the founder of Polygon; Pramod Viswanath, a professor at Princeton University and co-inventor of the technology which powers the 4G wireless standard; along with Himanshu Tyagi, a faculty member at the Indian Institute of Science. Sentient will use its unique blockchain protocol and incentivization mechanism to guarantee economic benefits for developers, fostering advancement in open artificial general intelligence.
Joey Krug, a partner at Founders Fund said, “At present, any person can simply duplicate models without incurring any costs, and Sentient is looking to address this issue, which deters open-source AI.” Sentient anticipates launching its testnet in the current quarter of 2024. The funding round also saw contributions from 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 participants.
Decentralized AI is becoming a popular trend in the tech industry, and 2024 has seen several startups synergizing blockchain and AI. Among them is Ora, an entity aiming to develop AI through blockchain, which received a funding of $20 million from Polychain, HF0, and Hashkey Capital in June. It is developing a mechanism to tokenize AI models through an initial model offering and plans to generate revenue which would be shared among token holders.
Investment in blockchain startups has surged in recent months. According to a study by Galaxy Research, funding for these startups reached $2.49 billion from 603 transactions in the initial quarter of 2024, marking a 29% funding growth and a 68% increase in transactions compared to the previous quarter.
Published At
7/2/2024 5:00:00 PM
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