ChainOpera AI successfully raised $17 million in seed funding to develop a blockchain L1 and AI operating system for decentralized AI agents and applications. The funding round was led by Finality Capital, Road Capital, and IDG Capital, with participation from various notable investors. The company aims to create a decentralized AI ecosystem focusing on AI creation, data sovereignty, and inclusive collaboration. ChainOpera's platform features unique tokenomics, a go-to-market strategy leveraging network effects, and a legal governance structure bridging Web2 and Web3 technologies. The company plans to release its flagship platform and mobile app soon, with a team of over 40 members across multiple global locations.

PALO ALTO, CA – Dec 25th, 2024 – ChainOpera AI, a pioneering blockchain L1 and AI operating system enabling co-creation and co-ownership of decentralized AI agents and applications, has announced the successful completion of its $17 million seed funding round. The round was led by Finality Capital, Road Capital, and IDG Capital, with participation from notable investors such as Camford VC, ABCDE Capital, Amber Group, Modular Capital, Sparkle Ventures, AimTop Venture, Wisemont Capital, LDV Partners, Acequia Capital, PrimeSet, Plug and Play, Silicon Valley Future Capital, and USC Marshall School of Business, as well as angel investors such as David Tse (Co-founder of BabylonChain), Sreeram Kannan (Founder and CEO of EigenLayer), and Jeff Ren (early investor in AI and Web3).“This funding is a major step toward fulfilling our vision of a decentralized AI ecosystem that prioritizes AI creation and monetization, data sovereignty and privacy, and inclusive collaboration,” said Prof. Salman Avestimehr, Co-founder and CEO of ChainOpera AI. “With this support from our investors, we are well-positioned to create a platform that not only advances AI innovation but also ensures fair value distribution for all participants.”The Blockchain AI OS for Co-creating and Co-owning Decentralized AI agents for HumanityThe narrative of ChainOpera AI and the platform being built can be summarized as shown in the figure above.ChainOpera has several unique innovations in its tokenomics and revenue models, particularly in its token protocols that:"Creating an inclusive AI economy for all roles demonstrates that we are a truly decentralized AI platform. Going beyond, we think differently, as a blockchain L1 AI platform" said Dr. Aiden He, Co-founder and President of ChainOpera AI. "ChainOpera actively supports diverse AI applications with unique tokenomics. We see LLM-based AI Agents as just one form of AI software, envisioning Personal AI OS with multimodal models and on-device federated learning as powerful digital companions to expand the blockchain AI community."Go-to-market strategy for network effect and AI data flywheel: The network effect is reflected in more AI agent users incentivizing developers to create more templates. AI Agent Builders provides templates for deploying and issuing AI tokens, simplifying transactions and the use of AI Agents. On the data flywheel, the AI ​​Terminal mobile application efficiently collects private data and rewards users for their data contributions through daily input. Federated learning then trains specialized AI Agents and task-specific models, resulting in unique GenAI models that benefit the community, which in turn further incentivizes the creation of more distinctive AI agents.Legal governance structure bridging web2 and web3: The ChainOpera Foundation incorporates Web2 enterprise-level AI platforms like TensorOpera.ai and FedML.ai. By bridging Web2 and Web3 AI technologies, it delivers customized model services for Web3 and generates unique private data. Unlike other AI companies that simply purchase Web2 model services, ChainOpera can customize the underlying infrastructure for Web3, enabling innovative token economic models.Healthy revenue models: ChainOpera Ecosystem maintains a healthy revenue model, generating substantial recurring revenue from enterprise AI services, with 7,000 AI model developers onboarded and high daily model inference usage. Additionally, in the web3 space, the platform generates revenue through token issuance for community maintenance, platform fees, AI model and agent services, and upcoming AI mobile phone sales.Deep technical moat: The core team members have collectively earned over 30,000 academic citations, with papers published at top AI and blockchain conferences. Their recent research includes groundbreaking work on proof of contribution, ZKML, the Fox small language model, ScaleLLM for scalable LLM serving, TensorOpera Router for edge-cloud hybrid model serving, and numerous papers on federated and distributed training using geographically distributed data. ChainOpera Platform is backed by years of efforts in these deep technologies.ChainOpera's co-founders, Prof. Salman Avestimehr and Dr. Aiden He, bring extensive backgrounds in AI and blockchain technologies. Prof. Avestimehr serves as a Dean's Professor at the University of Southern California (USC), directs the USC-Amazon Center on Trustworthy AI, and is an IEEE Fellow in AI and decentralized computation. Dr. He contributes rich R&D experience from leading internet companies including Meta, Google, AWS, and Tencent, with expertise in machine learning and AI applications, and has been deeply involved in Web3 projects. Together, they are also co-founders of TensorOpera and FedML, a leading AI company providing GenAI model services and AI agents to enterprises and developers.The broader founding team includes members with exceptional backgrounds from prestigious institutions including UC Berkeley, Stanford, USC, MIT, Tsinghua, Google, Amazon, Tencent, Meta, and Apple. They bring extensive experience in developing and operating AI/Web3 communities for consumer applications with large user bases.ChainOpera AI now comprises more than 40 team members across San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Singapore, Hong Kong, Seoul, Tokyo, Dubai, London, Greece, and Germany.ChainOpera plans to release its flagship platform and mobile app featuring AI agents in the coming weeks. For more information about ChainOpera AI, visit https://ChainOpera.ai or follow X at https://X.com/chainopera_ai and read the blog version of this newsletter.This post is commissioned by ChainOpera AIand does not serve as a testimonial or endorsement by The Block. This post is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment, tax, legal or other advice. You should conduct your own research and consult independent counsel and advisors on the matters discussed within this post. Past performance of any asset is not indicative of future results.

ChainOpera AI has completed a $17 million seed round of financing to develop a blockchain L1 and AI operating system.