UAE-based Web3 Startup Sentient Labs Raises $85 Million in Seed Funding

Blockchain-based AI startup Sentient Labs, headquartered in the UAE, has successfully raised $85 million in seed funding. This funding round was co-led by Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, Pantera Capital and Framework Ventures, with additional participation from a diverse group of strategic investors including Arrington Capital, Canonical, Dao5, Delphi, Dispersion, Ethereal, Folius, Foresight, Hack VC, Hashkey, Hypersphere, IDG, Mirana, Nomad, Primitive Ventures, Protagonist, Republic, Robot Ventures, Sky9, Spartan, Symbolic Capital, Topology, and several others.

Founded in January 2024 by Polygon Labs co-founder and executive chairman Sandeep Nailwal, Pramod Viswanath, and Himanshu Tyagi, Sentient Labs aims to democratize AI development, ensuring its benefits reach humanity as a whole. The company plans to use the capital to accelerate the development of its open-source AI platform and expand its team by hiring experts in AI research and blockchain engineering. They also intend to establish partnerships with leading academic institutions and industry players.

Sentient Labs distinguishes itself by rewarding engineers for essential tasks such as data labeling and refining, which are crucial for training AI models. The platform utilizes software from Polygon and aims to build a community-driven open AGI platform leveraging blockchain technology.

In a market dominated by tech giants like OpenAI, Google, and Meta, which often operate on closed-source or semi-closed models, Sentient Labs stands out with its open-source approach. Co-founder Himanshu Tyagi emphasized their mission, stating, “We’re building an open world through blockchain to achieve transparency and fairness. When our AI is used, everyone who contributed will be rewarded through the blockchain protocol.”

Source: TechFundingNews