September 18, 2024

Vana Raises Funding to Build User-Owned AI and Overcome the Data Wall

We are excited to share that Vana has secured a total of $25 million in funding to accelerate our mission of creating user-owned AI and overcoming the data wall faced by AI researchers. This funding includes a $5M strategic round with Coinbase Ventures, an $18M Series A with Paradigm and a $2M Seed with Polychain. 

In the age of AI, data has become the new oil. AI researchers are hitting a data wall, running out of public internet data to train AI models on. Vana offers a solution to this data shortage while ensuring that those who contribute data are fairly rewarded. Users pool their data through data DAOs, aggregating datasets that would usually be stuck in the walled gardens of big tech. 

“We're continually impressed by the Vana team as they build toward a future of user-owned data. We can’t wait to see what AI products they enable", said Jackson Dahl from Paradigm. 

Vana is the first network designed for private, user-owned data. It consists of an EVM-compatible layer 1 blockchain designed specifically for collective ownership of private digital assets: the private data that powers the future of AI, along with native support for pooling data through data DAOs and rewards for the top 16 data liquidity pools. 

Key features of Vana:

  • Users pool their data via data DAOs, secured by proof of contribution
  • Contributors earn ownership in the AI models they help create
  • EVM compatible for flexible incentives: dataset-specific tokens, AI model-specific tokens
  • Top 16 data DAOs earn a share of emissions

Our developer testnet has already seen significant traction, with leading projects in the ecosystem: @rdatadao, which saw 140,000 Reddit users join the DAO and has now trained the first user-owned AI model, the twitter data DAO, founded by early Bittensor miners, and the LinkedIn Data DAO, the first venture backed project on Vana. There are 8 teams in the Aurora cohort building leading data DAOs. 

Funding Breakdown

  • $5M Strategic Round with Coinbase Ventures, closed last week
  • $18M Series A with Paradigm
  • $2M Seed led with Polychain

We’re proud to have brought together leading backers of user-owned AI, who are taking the bet that data is the foundational resource needed for AI. Other notable backers include: Casey Caruso, Packy McCormick, Manifold, GSR, Will Price, Jez, SCB 10X, Defiance Capital, Contango, Auros Ventures, MH Ventures, BoxGroup, and Will Manidis. 

With this funding, we're excited to accelerate the development of Vana and support the growing ecosystem of decentralized AI projects built with user-owned data. 

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