ChainCatcher news, the encrypted AI startup OpenLayer has completed a $5 million seed round financing, with participation from a16z Crypto Startup Accelerator (CSX), Geometry, IOSG Ventures, Spartan Group, LongHash Ventures, and undisclosed angel investors from EigenLayer, AltLayer, Puffer Finance, and Sei Network.The financing process began in June and concluded in August. This round of financing utilized a Simple Agreement for Future Equity (SAFE) structure. OpenLayer plans to launch its own token in the future. Currently, OpenLayer has 7 employees in the U.S. and plans to hire two more engineers.OpenLayer acts as an AI data layer, allowing users to contribute and verify data through a Chrome extension and earn points. According to its website, application developers can access this user data with user consent, thereby protecting privacy. Use cases include training AI models, user targeting, and enhancing features.

ChainCatcher news, according to The Block, the verifiable data infrastructure Vlayer has completed a $10 million pre-seed funding round, with participation from a16z Crypto Startup Accelerator (CSX), Credo Ventures, BlockTower Capital, and others.According to reports, Vlayer is a crypto startup developing "verifiable data infrastructure," referring to it as "Solidity 2.0." Its goal is to enable developers to verify and integrate real-world data into Ethereum smart contracts.Specifically, Vlayer will introduce four new features to Ethereum's Solidity language: time travel (executing smart contracts using historical on-chain data), teleportation (running contracts across multiple EVM-compatible networks), Web proof/zkTLS (verifying and integrating web content, including APIs and websites), and email proof/ZK email (accessing and verifying email content).

ChainCatcher news, according to TheBlock, Coinbase Ventures and a16z Crypto Startup Accelerator (CSX) announced a new strategic investment in Skyfire, a payment company focused on artificial intelligence. This investment increases Skyfire's total seed funding from the previous $8.5 million to $9.5 million. Currently, Skyfire is building infrastructure that allows AI agents to make autonomous payments, avoiding human intermediaries.Additionally, the Web3 asset data platform RootData shows that Skyfire is the financial stack of the AI economy, providing an instant, global, and open payment system for AI agents to conduct fully autonomous transactions between AI agents, law masters, data platforms, service providers, and other goods and services. The Skyfire payment network also unlocks the fastest-growing consumer segment globally for LLMs, data, and service providers—AI agents. Empowered by Skyfire, AI agents will be able to leverage a vast digital service ecosystem for everything from data analysis and content creation to complex problem-solving and decision-making, all without human supervision. All these transactions will be supported by the stablecoin USDC.

ChainCatcher news, the decentralized open-source AI platform OpenGradient has announced the completion of a $8.5 million seed round financing. This round of financing was participated by a16z Crypto Startup Accelerator (a16z CSX), Foresight Ventures, SV Angel, Coinbase Ventures, SALT Fund, and Symbolic Capital. Notable industry figures such as former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan, NEAR founder Illia Polosukhin, and Polygon founder Sandeep Nailwal also participated as angel investors.It is reported that OpenGradient is committed to accelerating the development of open-source artificial intelligence, providing scalable on-chain AI computing capabilities while ensuring the verifiability, attribution, and security of AI deployment and hosting.

ChainCatcher news, Ryan Rzepecki, co-founder of the decentralized 3D map project MeshMap, stated in a post on X that the project has completed a $4 million funding round, with participation from firms such as a16z CSX, Colosseum, Lattice, Escape Velocity, and GSR. Additionally, individual investors in this round include Solana's two co-founders toly and raj, as well as former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan.It is reported that a16z Crypto has announced the launch of the crypto startup accelerator (CSX) fall 2024 program, with MeshMap and 20 other projects selected.

ChainCatcher news, according to The Block, the zero-knowledge proof generation layer Fermah has completed a $5.2 million seed round financing, led by a16z's CSX and Lemniscap, with participation from Bankless Ventures, Longhash Ventures, the P-OPS team, Public Works, ZK Validator, Lambda Class, Daedalus, Zero DAO, Velocity Capital, Daemon Ventures, and angel investors including Balaji Srinivasan and Sandeep Nailwal.According to the Web3 asset data platform RootData, Fermah is a general-purpose zero-knowledge proof generation layer. It acts as a marketplace, with suppliers including GPUs and FPGAs. On the demand side, Fermah can generate proofs for any instance using ZK.

ChainCatcher news, according to Decrypt, AI infrastructure company PIN AI has completed a $10 million pre-seed funding round, with participation from a16z CSX, Hack VC, Blockchain Builders Fund (Stanford Blockchain Accelerator), Illia Polosukhin (founder of NEAR Protocol), Anagram/Lily Liu (chair of the Solana Foundation), Symbolic Capital (co-founder of Polygon), Evan Cheng (CEO of Mysten Labs/SUI), dcbuilder (Worldcoin Foundation), Foresight Ventures (parent company of The Block), Nomad Capital, Tim Shi (co-founder of Cresta), Ben Fisch (CEO of Espresso), Scott Moore (co-founder of Gitcoin), Alumni Ventures, and Dispersion Capital.It is reported that PIN AI is developing the world's first open-source Personal Intelligent Network (PIN). PIN AI's platform provides an open-source, web3-supported alternative to Apple Intelligence, turning smartphones into privacy-focused AI personal assistants. PIN AI's open platform connects privacy-protected user data through a Layer 2 blockchain.