Web3-AI Firm ChainML Raises Over $6 Million in Funding as 2024 Sees Spike in Capital Inflow

ChainML, a Web3-enabled AI platform, has secured a notable investment, handing a boost to the Web3 funding environment. The Silicon Valley-based AI and ML development and research firm's latest investment round, Led by Hack VC, fetched $6.2 million (roughly Rs. 51 crore). The platform aims to decentralise access to artificial intelligence (AI). The latest investment follows a rising trend of Web3 funding, which has seen a spike in the first three months of 2024 after seeing a slowdown around the fourth quarter of 2023.

Based in San Francisco, California, ChainML is an open-source framework designed to create production-level AI protocols, that could facilitate scalable use cases of artificial intelligence technology to further develop Web3 solutions. In a fresh development, the platform has also released ‘Theoriq', a base layer created to support AI-powered Web3 solutions. Such base layers are called agentic base layers, that act like agents to support advanced tech protocols.

The concept of merging AI and Web3 by ChainML seems to have gained the trust of multiple venture capital firms.

The Super Seed funding round for ChainML reportedly includes other investors like Foresight Ventures, Inception Capital, HTX Ventures, Figment Capital, Hypersphere Ventures and Alumni Ventures. A press release from one of the investors HTX Ventures said that the funding underscored “the confidence and excitement surrounding ChainML's vision to seamlessly integrate AI into the decentralized world of blockchain and revolutionize the AI landscape.”

ChainML co-founder and CEO Ron Bodkin called the investment a “a pivotal moment” for the company and for broader AI and Web3 landscape. “With Theoriq, we're not just launching a product—we're spearheading a movement towards a transparent, community-governed AI ecosystem,” he said in the press release. Bodkin said the fresh funding into his platform would help the firm explore more potential use cases of AI with the decentralised sector.

Several Web3 projects have managed to bag investments this year. Back in April, citing its own data, a Crunchbase report claimed that a total of 346 funding deals were finalised for Web3 firms in the first quarter of 2024. The collective amount raised in these deals totalled to $1.9 billion (roughly Rs. 15,867 crore). In the fourth quarter of 2023, meanwhile, Web3 startups had managed to raise $1.2 billion (roughly Rs. 10,021 crore) across 263 deals.

London-based Exohood Labs, Seattle-based EigenLabs, and Hong Kong-based Freechat raised $112 million (roughly Rs. 935 crore), $100 million (roughly Rs. 835 crore), and $80 million (roughly Rs. 668 crore), respectively, in fresh funding rounds in the Q1 of 2024.

As per Crunchbase, New York-based Monad Labs bagged Web3's largest funding for the year so far — a $225 million (roughly Rs. 1,879 crore) investment with VC firm Paradigm leading the round in April this year.