Original Title: (Which AI Agent projects have received VC support?)

Original author: Fu Ruo, Odaily Planet Daily

In the past two months, the AI Agent sector has experienced rapid development, with projects represented by ai16z bringing considerable wealth returns to the market. Meanwhile, several well-known institutions have unanimously predicted a positive outlook for the integration of AI and cryptocurrency in 2025, with organizations such as DWF Ventures, a16z, and Messari identifying AI+Crypto as an important development direction for the future.

Unlike projects under traditional financing models, the initial explosion of the AI Agent sector occurred on-chain in the form of memes, which has allowed retail participation to far exceed that of VCs. This fair launch model, compared to previous projects' private placements, has higher fairness and transparency, attracting significant attention from investors. However, although the absence of VC involvement seems to make the market more equal and open, can we safely conclude that the lack of VC participation is necessarily a good thing?

In fact, despite the recent pressures on token prices faced by VC-funded projects due to factors such as token unlocks, VC attention has decreased, which is a result of the profit-seeking nature of capital and exit mechanisms. However, the role of VCs should not be overlooked, especially in the due diligence phase of early-stage projects. VCs' in-depth due diligence can help investors filter out potential high-risk projects, avoiding excessive blind investments. Additionally, well-funded project teams can often focus more on technological innovation during the early development phase and possess more professional and efficient capabilities in project promotion and later operations, which are advantages that most on-chain meme projects cannot compare to.

Therefore, overall, investment opportunities in the AI Agent sector are not limited to on-chain meme projects; VC funding also has its unique advantages. By reviewing AI Agent concept projects that received primary market investments in the past six months, Odaily Planet Daily aims to provide readers with diversified investment options. Whether it's a VC project or an on-chain meme project, as long as the trend is correctly grasped, there are opportunities for profit.

Coinbase Ventures and Visa jointly invested - Payman

Payman is a payment platform from AI to users, designed to provide payment capabilities for AI so it can pay users for completing tasks (such as marketing, etc.). The platform supports payments in fiat currency and the USDC stablecoin, providing a convenient flow of funds for interactions between AI and users.

Core Functions:

· Easy Integration: Payman's API allows users to fund AI in seconds and begin executing tasks.

· Powerful Dashboard: The platform has a built-in spending limit feature, helping manage AI budgets while monitoring AI spending through precise task tracking.

· Flexible Task Publishing: AI can easily assign tasks to users who need to complete them or publish tasks to the platform's market.

Platform Highlights:

· Human Market: Payman provides a dedicated market for AI to help it find users to complete tasks it cannot accomplish independently or requires assistance in certain areas.

· Multiple Payment Methods: Whether the AI chooses to use fiat currency, cryptocurrency, or pay users through bank accounts, Payman can provide support, ensuring a convenient and secure payment process.

Payman enables AI to pay users for completing tasks, with the following steps:

· Add Funds to AI Wallet: First, log into the platform, create an AI agent, and recharge its wallet.

· Integrate Payman API into AI: By integrating Payman's API, funds are provided to AI to start using the platform.

· AI Publish Tasks: AI agents publish tasks to the market, inviting users to participate and complete them.

· Webhooks Notify Task Completion: The webhooks provided by Payman will notify AI agents upon task completion, helping them optimize task processing and execution.

Payman's application scenarios are quite rich. For example, in product management, AI agents can optimize product development by paying users for feedback; in the interview process, AI can pay candidates to complete tasks and analyze results to improve hiring efficiency; in marketing and growth, AI can not only formulate marketing strategies but also pay influencers to execute tasks, thereby expanding brand influence; in engineering, AI can ensure the accuracy and efficiency of code by paying experts for code reviews. Through these applications, Payman injects new momentum into various industries, promoting deep collaboration between AI and users.

Payman announced the completion of $3 million in pre-seed funding on August 8 last year, with investors including Visa, Coinbase Ventures, and The Spartan Group among other well-known venture capital firms. The project was successfully selected for the Binance Labs MVB accelerator program as early as July last year. Payman's co-founder Tyllen Bicakcic has held key developer relations roles at Uniswap Foundation and Flow public chain.

Coinbase Ventures and a16z jointly invested - Skyfire

Skyfire is an innovative payment solution designed for the AI economy, committed to providing a global, instant, and open payment system for AI agents, supporting fully autonomous transactions across AI agents, language models (LLM), data platforms, service providers, and other goods and services. All transactions will be paid in the stablecoin USDC, ensuring the stability and liquidity of transactions.

Skyfire's payment network connects AI agents and service providers globally, enabling AI agents to autonomously make efficient payments for services ranging from data analysis to content creation, and even complex decision-making and problem-solving. Unlike traditional payment systems, Skyfire eliminates manual intermediaries, allowing AI agents to make payments without human intervention, significantly improving efficiency and automation.

Skyfire completed $8.5 million in seed round financing last August, with well-known institutions such as Circle, Ripple, and Gemini participating in the investment. It later received a strategic investment of $1 million from Coinbase Ventures and a16z CSX, bringing the total financing amount to $9.5 million. a16z Crypto announced that its cryptocurrency startup accelerator program will launch in New York City in the fall of 2024, with Skyfire successfully selected as one of the 21 startups in this batch.

Skyfire's payment network operates on the USDC stablecoin and has received public support from Circle co-founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire. Skyfire is currently deployed on the Polygon network, with plans to expand to other public chains in the future.

Skyfire was founded by former Ripple executives, and co-founder and CEO Amir Sarhangi stated that traditional payment systems cannot meet the needs of AI agents, while cryptocurrency and blockchain offer an ideal solution - capable of providing round-the-clock microtransactions with high efficiency and low fees. The Skyfire team has already collaborated with several clients, including parts manufacturers for Indian automotive service centers and AI infrastructure providers, and is negotiating with multiple large language models (LLM) to adopt its USDC-based AI agent payment solution.

CMT Digital led the investment - Axal

Axal focuses on building a verifiable autonomous intelligent agent network, aiming to enable intelligent agents to perform various tasks. From complex trading strategies to community interactions, users only need to define their needs through simple natural language or programming interfaces, while Axal handles the sourcing, bidding, and payment processing for the agents.

Axal completed $2.5 million in pre-seed financing, led by CMT Digital, with other supporters including a16z Crypto Startup School, Escape Velocity, IDG Vietnam, Artichoke Capital, Trident Digital, Blockchain Builders Fund, Blockhunters Group, Echo, and Mentat Group, among many others and numerous angel investors.

Axal also launched its first product - Axal Autopilot, which is a trading automation platform driven by intelligent agents, aimed at helping cryptocurrency holders create personalized trading strategies. The platform offers features such as price tracking, on-chain trade execution, and yield management, allowing users to manage their crypto assets more efficiently.

Hack VC led the investment - Theoriq

Theoriq is a modular, composable AI agent foundational layer that provides strong support for machine learning and related complex data-driven computing, dedicated to applying machine learning in fields such as DeFi, gaming, social interaction, and data infrastructure.

Theoriq was established in 2022. One of the core services of Theoriq is to build a market for AI agents and resources, allowing autonomous AI agents to interact and collaborate through its forum called Infinity Hub, thereby enhancing their capabilities and productivity in executing certain tasks. The platform encourages agents to collaborate by sharing their expertise, similar to specialized trade in the global economy, achieving more efficient task completion.

The Theoriq platform has created a reward system for AI agents, which includes two important concepts:

· Proof of Contribution: Agents are rewarded for their useful work.

· Proof of Collaboration: Agents are rewarded for collaborating with other agents on tasks.

These agents can access data, computations, digital assets, and physical assets, and can make on-chain payments and receipts. Theoriq also plans to launch a no-code development tool that allows users to build their own professional agents without a technical background. The application scenarios for these agents are wide-ranging, with the recently released version Claude significantly enhancing computing power, thus improving the functionality of AI agents.

At the same time, the platform has established a governance mechanism for malicious agents, evaluating agents through a ranking system, allowing users to assess their value based on agent performance. Users can also fund agents by staking and provide feedback to help further optimize the agents.

Theoriq has received over $10 million in funding from companies such as Hack VC, Foresight Ventures, and HTX Ventures. Recently, the platform also launched an incentive testnet, with the mainnet expected to go live soon.

Polychain Capital led the investment - Talus Network

Talus Network is a high-throughput blockchain platform designed for decentralized AI agents, committed to providing AI agents with autonomous execution and management capabilities in various fields (such as DeFi, gaming, DAO, etc.). The Talus network uses the Sui Move programming language and MoveVM as its blockchain infrastructure, with a technology stack that includes the Nexus agent framework, Python SDK, and off-chain services, all aimed at providing developers with flexibility, performance, and security to support them in building decentralized AI solutions.

The Talus network provides users with the infrastructure to create and deploy AI agents. These smart agents can not only optimize liquidity strategies in DeFi but also act as automated resource gathering agents in games, helping players or guilds improve efficiency.

Talus Network announced the completion of $6 million in financing on November 26 last year, led by Polychain Capital, with participation from Foresight Ventures, Animoca, and other companies, bringing the platform's valuation to $150 million after the financing. This round of financing will be used to further develop Talus's ecosystem, including the Protochain, Nexus framework, and the development of the 'AI dating experience' application.

Previously, Talus completed a $3 million seed round financing in February 2023, also led by Polychain Capital.

Talus agents have the ability to autonomously manage smart contracts, executing tasks across multiple domains, such as portfolio optimization and MEV protection in DeFi, financial management and grants in DAOs, and automated NPC management and testing in games. Talus agents will become assets on the blockchain, co-owned and monetized by users, promoting the economic viability of decentralized AI agents.

In addition, Talus Network has launched an interactive blockchain application called AI Bae, which provides an 'AI dating experience.' Users can interact with AI companions called 'Baes,' generating unique Baes by connecting their TikTok accounts. The application offers real-time chat, Polymarket-style betting features, and meme-token elements, allowing users to bet on dating outcomes and even convert Baes into tokens.

Original link