GAIB reports that it has raised a $5 million pre-seed round in order to build the economic layer for AI compute.
GAIB has confirmed the completion of their pre-seed funding round.
The investment round was co-led by Hack VC, Faction, and Hashed, alongside investments from groups including The Spartan Group, L2IV, CMCC Global, Animoca Brands, IVC, MH Ventures, Presto Labs, J17, IDG Blockchain.
Other investors reportedly included the following: 280 Capital, Aethir, and NEAR Foundation, as well as angel investors including Alyssa Tsai, Ben Wee, Brian Retford, Charlie Hu, Chelsea, Chris Yin, among many others.
This funding round marks a key milestone in their journey to enable the financialization of compute and “build out the AI economy.”
The funds will now be utilized to accelerate the ongoing development of GAIB’s infrastructure, focusing on “expanding product offerings, enhancing tokenized GPU solutions, and strengthening partnerships with players in the AI and crypto industries.”
GAIB claims that it addresses “major” challenges in the AI industry:
- Problem 1 – Demand for Funding: The demand for high-performance compute is skyrocketing, driven by advancements in AI. Sam Altman estimates that OpenAI will require $300 billion in compute investment, while companies like Microsoft and Amazon heavily invest in infrastructure to support an AGI future. However, cloud and data center operations require significant capital expenditures (CapEx). To scale, these businesses need immense capital and faster ways to recoup their investments. A notable example is CoreWeave’s $7.5 billion GPU-backed debt financing from Blackstone and Magnetar Capital, highlighting the emerging demand for GPU-based financing solutions. (link)
- Problem 2 – Lack of Access: Despite the rapid growth of the compute industry, average investors lack direct access to compute assets and cannot benefit from this expansion. Entry barriers for investing in cloud and data centers are prohibitively high, leaving semiconductor stocks like NVIDIA as the few indirect options for investment.
GAIB’s Solution is described as follows:
GAIB builds the economic layer for AI compute by tokenizing enterprise-grade GPUs and their yields.
This innovation reportedly enables cloud and data centers to “raise funds by collateralizing their GPUs while giving investors access to the attractive yields generated by these assets.”
Through blockchain tokenization, GAIB introduces a new asset class backed by real AI demand, creating a decentralized, “liquid market for compute assets like GPU.”
Tokenized GPUs serve as foundational yield-bearing assets, unlocking a range of decentralized finance (DeFi) applications, “including GPU-backed stablecoins, lending, borrowing, options, futures, and structured products to be built on top. GAIB’s unique approach bridges cutting-edge technology with the financial world, paving the way for a new era of financialization in AI compute.”
GAIB has been building toward its vision.
Apart from the fundraise, highlights include:
- Deployed the H200 in Web3 Decentralized Compute Network: GAIB, in partnership with Aethir and GMI Cloud, recently launched the first decentralized AI compute powered by H200 GPUs. GMI Cloud stakes physical H200 GPUs on the GAIB network, which are then re-staked to Aethir, making these compute resources accessible to anyone in need.
- Partnership with io.net: GAIB has formed partnerships with io.net to drive innovation and enhance access to GPU compute.
The collab will focus on areas like the following: strategic marketing, community engagement, technical integration, and business development initiatives. (link)
They claim to have built the prototype of their tokenization protocol and are gearing up for the upcoming pilot launch.