Masa Network, builder of the decentralized data marketplace, announced $5.4M in its seed fundraising round led by Anagram, co-founded by Solana Foundation President Lily Liu and former Polychain President Joe Eagan.
Additional investors reportedly “include Avalanche Blizzard Fund, Digital Currency Group, GoldenTree, OP Crypto, Unshackled Ventures, PEER VC, amongst others.”
In the age of AI, data is the new oil. Data has become “the most valuable global commodity.”
The generative AI race is now “turning unique and valuable personal data into the next frontier of value creation.”
For too long, the world’s most valuable user data has “been locked away by Big Tech companies and exploited without user consent or fair compensation.”
As the demand for personal data “continues to exponentially grow, users deserve to control their data and get compensated for its use. It’s time for a new data paradigm.”
Masa is building a “Decentralized Google,” an open, secure, and incentivized economy “for the world’s personal data. It shifts power back to individuals, without compromising data privacy, through leveraging cutting-edge zero-knowledge and fully-homomorphic encryptions.”
Users can contribute their data to the network and “get rewarded in Masa’s native token. Developers can then access this data to train AI models, run analytics, and build innovative applications in a privacy-preserving way.”
This most recent seed round brings Masa’s total funding to $9.2M. Funding will be used to support Masa’s Q1 Mainnet Launch on “a dedicated Avalanche Subnet through a strategic partnership with Avalanche, and building the leading zk-Data Network.”
Calanthia Mei, Co-Founder of Masa Network, said:
“Masa Network realizes the original blockchain dream – a fair data economy where you own and profit from your personal data. With AI fueling surging demand, Masa arrives at the perfect time. Masa lets you control and monetize your data on a decentralized marketplace. No more free lunches – own your data, control its use, get paid. The future is data sovereignty. The power is yours with Masa.”
Joe Eagan, Co-Founder of Anagram, said:
“At Anagram, we think data is the most valuable commodity in the world. Masa uniquely enables users to become owners and more tightly aligns the value of the data with the creator of the data, creating a positive sum environment.”
Since launching in August 2022, Masa claims that it ?”has achieved significant traction with over 1 million connected wallets, over 15 million permissioned data points, and over 23,000 testnet node operators.”
Projects like Avalanche, QuickSwap, Injective, Celo, and more “are early adopters of Masa’s products. Masa’s invention of zero-knowledge Soulbound Tokens was published at the 7th Cyber Security in Networking Conference (CSNET).”
