Venice AI raises $65 million in 1st round, reaches $1B valuation
Venice AI, a privacy-focused AI platform, just hit unicorn status after raising $65 million in its first-ever funding round.
Led by Dragonfly and backed by Coinbase Ventures and North Island Ventures, this puts Venice AI's value at $1 billion.
The platform already has over three million users and handles 1.7 million API calls every day.
Venice AI encrypts data on-device
Venice AI keeps things private by encrypting your data before it even leaves your device and routing everything through an external proxy.
Users can pick from uncensored open-source models or closed options like OpenAI and Anthropic.
CEO Erik Voorhees says the goal is all about user privacy and freedom. Plus, their crypto tokens "VVV" and "DIEM" let you stake VVV to mint DIEM, which generates credits you can spend on the platform.
Venice AI to build data centers
The new funds will help Venice AI build its own data centers to cut costs and improve their tech, making it a real contender against mainstream platforms.
They're already pulling in over $70 million a year by offering access to 200+ privacy-focused AI models.