0G Labs, a web3 infrastructure firm, has secured $35 million in a pre-seed round to expand infrastructure.
0G co-founder Michael Heinrich disclosed the latest funding round in a statement on Tuesday.
To address the speed and cost-efficiency issues with on-chain AI applications in the web3 ecosystem, 0G, also known as ZeroGravity, claims to develop a modular AI blockchain. Rivals that concentrate on modularity are EigenLayer and Celestia.
The team at 0G Labs, led by co-founder Michael Heinrich, articulated their vision behind the staggering pre-seed funding.
Heinrich revealed that their initial fundraising goal was $5 million. However, the robust backing they have received so far has surpassed this initial target, emphasizing the immense potential investors see in their endeavour.
A press release from 0G Labs states that around 40 crypto-native organisations, including Stanford Builders Fund and Hack VC, participated in the round.
As per the release, the fund will be utilised to realise the goal of 0G Labs, which is to develop a full-stack blockchain-based system for developing, implementing, and utilising artificial intelligence models.
One of its platform’s primary advantages over current state-of-the-art options, including Ethereum’s smart contract network, is speed, according to the press release.
In contrast, on August 22, 2016, $120,000 was raised at the pre-seed round by OpenAI, the company that created ChatGPT and Dall-E.
Since then, OpenAI has profited greatly from using its generative AI technology, and as of February 2024, it is valued at about $80 billion.
“Our goal is we can now enable any blockchain to be as performant and inexpensive as a web2 application,” Heinrich said. “That’s the benefit of having this modularity approach.”
Ed Roman, Managing Partner at Hack V, lauded 0G Labs as a pioneer in the area of on-chain generative AI infrastructure:
“0G is positioned as the premier modular data availability solution for web3, including the next frontier of crypto-powered AI networks.
“Their data availability technology has shown to achieve speeds 1000x+ faster and cheaper than ETH L1, which is simply phenomenal. We’re proud to be their partners in this journey and can’t wait to see their ecosystem thrive as the team pushes forward towards main-net.”
