OpenGradient, a leading decentralized AI infrastructure company, has raised $8.5M in seed funding. With a mission to accelerate open-source AI, OpenGradient democratizes model ownership, streamlines AI deployment, and enables universal access to AI.

The $8.5 million seed round included participation from a16z Crypto Startup Accelerator (a16z CSX), SV Angel, Coinbase Ventures, SALT Fund, Symbolic Capital, Foresight Ventures, and angel investors, including Balaji Srinivasan (ex-Coinbase CTO), Illia Polosukhin (NEAR Founder), Sandeep Nailwal (Polygon Founder), and more. OpenGradient is also currently participating in the Fall 2024 a16z CSX program in New York City.

OpenGradient's end-to-end decentralized platform offers scalable AI compute on-chain, ensuring verifiability and attribution while enhancing security for AI deployment and hosting. Its multi-layer technology stack includes an EVM-compatible blockchain with its innovative heterogeneous AI compute architecture (HACA) and a proprietary library of feature-rich tools to support and scale secure AI workflows on-chain.