Web3 AI platform ChainML raises $6.2 million in seed extension round

ChainML, a web3-enabled AI platform, has raised $6.2 million in a seed extension round and unveiled its agentic base layer called Theoriq. 

Hack VC led the funding round, with Foresight Ventures, Inception Capital, HTX Ventures, Figment Capital, Hypersphere Ventures and Alumni Ventures participating, ChainML said Monday. The round, structured as equity with token warrants, was raised at the end of last year and is now being announced alongside the reveal of Theoriq, ChainML co-founder and CEO Ron Bodkin (a former technical director of applied artificial intelligence at Google), told The Block. Bodkin declined to comment on the valuation.

ChainML's seed extension round comes nearly two years after it raised $4 million in a seed funding round led by IOSG Ventures in September 2022.

What is ChainML?

ChainML is a web3-enabled AI research and development startup aiming to decentralize AI access. Today, it unveiled its agentic base layer called Theoriq — a framework for autonomous AI agents — to accomplish complex tasks.

"We believe that our agentic base layer is going to be the point of value creation in web3 moving forward, enabling intuitive access to web3 value drivers from DeFi, infra and restaking to memecoins. We are partnering with resource providers in DePIN compute, inference and data," Bodkin said.

He added that Theoriq leverages blockchain technology to enable agent registration, payment and security. Regarding specific use cases of Theoriq, Bodkin said ChainML is partnering with "established web3 projects" to launch AI agents for their communities, details of which will be unveiled at the Consensus 2024 event.

"These agents leverage multiple input sources, including social media, community feedback and on-chain data to perform a variety of tasks for the web3 community, from reading documentation and sentiment analysis to more sophisticated investment planning," Bodkin said.

Theoriq launch

ChainML plans to launch Theoriq's testnet this summer and mainnet later this year, Bodkin said. The firm will have around 25 people in June, with some pending hires. With the seed extension round, ChainML plans to hire more people across its engineering and research departments and hire a dedicated go-to-market team, Bodkin said.

ChainML competes with other similar web3-enabled AI platforms such as Fetch.ai, Autonolas and MyShell, Bodkin said. "We believe that Theoriq will serve as the framework for delivering useful and sophisticated AI agents that solve pain points in web3 and beyond," Bodkin concluded.