September 17, 2024
Vana, a web3 startup focused on creating user-owned data pools, announced it has raised an additional $5 million, bringing its total funding to $25 million. Coinbase Ventures led this strategic round, adding to previous investments from Paradigm, which led an $18 million Series A.
Project | Latest Raise | Latest Raise Date | Stage | Lead Investor | Category |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Vana | $25M | September 17, 2024 | Strategic Investment | Coinbase Ventures | AI |
Vana aims to build a network of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) using blockchain technology to address the shortage of training data for AI models while providing income opportunities for internet users. The company is part of a growing trend of businesses at the intersection of blockchain and artificial intelligence.
Co-founder and CEO Anna Kazlauskas highlights the value of data that can enhance AI models, particularly private data from social media users, which is highly valuable. DAOs within Vana’s network will enable members to pool data from platforms like Reddit, LinkedIn, and X, and monetize it by selling to AI researchers.
Kazlauskas believes in the potential of individuals selling their own data, noting that much of the publicly available data has already been used in existing AI models. Data from platforms requiring login, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Gmail, holds greater value due to its protected nature.
About Vana
Vana is a platform that allows users to create, own, and share their digital identities. It focuses on user-owned data, enabling individuals to control and monetize their personal information. Vana aims to empower users by providing tools to generate and manage their digital personas, which can be used across various applications and services.
Website: https://www.vana.org/
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About Investor
Investor: Coinbase Ventures
Coinbase Ventures provides financing to startups that show promise in moving the crypto and web3 space forward in a positive, meaningful way. The fund has been involved in numerous funding rounds, supporting a variety of projects in the crypto and blockchain space. These include Solana-based multisig protocol Squads, yield-bearing stablecoin issuer Mountain Protocol, Latin American Stablecoin-Powered SuperApp El Dorado, social protocols technology stack builder Neynar, parallelized confidential computing network Arcium, and Ethereum’s decentralization propeller Puffer Finance. Coinbase Ventures’ portfolio is diverse, reflecting its commitment to advancing the crypto and web3 ecosystem.
Location: San Francisco, California
Website: https://www.coinbase.com/ventures
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