Blockchain-Based, AI Compute Protocol Gensyn Closes $43M Series A Funding Round Led by a16z Crypto

Gensyn, a provider of blockchain-based computing resources for artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, has secured a $43 million Series A funding round led by venture capital giant a16z.

The British company’s protocol enables developers to build AI systems on smaller data centers, personal gaming computers and other connected hardware and pay on demand. Gensysn uses a cryptographic verification network that, without the need for intermediaries, allows users to determine that machine learning work shared across the protocol has been completed correctly.

“Realizing its (AI’s) potential requires enormous computational power,” Gensysn co-founder Ben Fielding said in a press release on Monday (UTC). “We are harnessing electricity for a new age and making it available to everyone at unlimited scale and fair market prices.”

Fielding said such widespread availability was “essential” to avoid “dangerously biased technology that serves the many but built by the few. The key to useful, aligned AI is to allow everyone in the world to contribute to its development.”

In the release, Gensyn co-founder Harry Grieve also noted that “with decentralized networks, value simply accrues to the network as a function of supply and demand.”

“It also greatly increases the amount of data provision by connecting to previously underutilized hardware from around the world,” he said.

The announcement comes amid growing interest in AI, which could potentially change the way businesses in a range of industries operate, including media, retail, manufacturing and financial services. Last month, chip maker Nvidia, whose products are integrated for the graphics processing units (GPUs) at the heart of AI systems, hit a $1 trillion valuation.

With its latest round, Gensyn has raised more than $50 million, and the company said it would use the fresh capital to accelerate the adoption of the protocol and expand its workforce, including the addition of protocol and machine learning engineers. Prominent investment firms CoinFund, Canonical Crypto, Protocol Labs, Eden Block and a number of AI and crypto venture capitalists and angels joined a16z in the round.

“Recent advances in AI are incredible, but significant computational power requirements give big tech companies an edge over startups in the race to capture AI’s value,” a16z crypto general partner Ali Yahya said in a statement. “We believe no one combines the knowledge and cultural understanding of both the AI ​​and cryptocypherpunk worlds better than Gensyn, and look forward to working with them to make the infrastructure for AI much more accessible.”