July 2, 2024
In a major boost for open-source artificial intelligence (AI) development, Sentient has secured a significant investment of $85 million. The seed funding round was co-led by Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, alongside Pantera Capital and Framework Ventures. This funding will be used to grow the Sentient team and further develop their open AI platform.
Project | Latest Raise | Latest Raise | Stage | Total Raise | Lead Investor | Category |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Sentient | July 2, 2024 | $85M | Seed | $85M | Founders Fund | AI |
Sentient's goal is to incentivize and empower AI developers. They aim to create a system similar to existing open-source communities, but with a key difference: allowing developers to profit from their open-source models and data. This addresses a current limitation in open-source AI development, where developers lack sufficient incentives to contribute.
The team behind Sentient is impressive. It includes Sandeep Nailwal, founder of Polygon, Pramod Viswanath, a Princeton professor who co-invented the technology behind 4G wireless, and Himanshu Tyagi, a professor at the Indian Institute of Science.
Sentient believes their approach using blockchain technology will create a win-win situation for developers. Their platform will offer economic incentives, ensuring everyone benefits from the growth of open artificial general intelligence. This innovation aims to solve the current problem of "free-riding" in open-source AI, where others can simply copy models without compensating the developers.
Sentient's testnet is expected to launch this quarter. The company's funding round also attracted participation from numerous other investors, highlighting the growing interest in decentralized AI. This investment reflects a broader trend in the tech industry, with venture capital funding for blockchain startups experiencing significant growth in 2024.
About Sentient
Sentient is an AI research organization fostering a new Open AGI Economy for AI Builders and Creators. We are building platforms and protocols to enable open-source AI developers to (1) monetize their models, data, and other innovations, (2) collaborate with each other to collectively build powerful AIs, and (3) be significant stakeholders in a new Open AGI economy.
Website: https://sentient.foundation/
X Account: https://x.com/sentient_agi
X Followers today: 25,700
About Investors
Investor: Founders Fund
Description: Founders Fund is a venture capital firm based in San Francisco. Founded in 2005, the firm has grown to manage over $12 billion in assets and has a reputation for backing innovative and ambitious companies. They've invested in a wide range of sectors, including space exploration (SpaceX), social media (Facebook), and artificial intelligence (Palantir Technologies). Founders Fund is known for being early investors in breakout companies and for taking a founder-centric approach to venture capitalism.
Location: United States
Website: https://foundersfund.com
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