As the cryptocurrency market heats up once again, so does the funding for new startups. 0G Labs, a web3 infrastructure firm, has successfully raised $35 million in a pre-seed round, the team exclusively informed TechCrunch. The sum may seem significant for a pre-seed round, but according to 0G co-founder Michael Heinrich, it is necessary for their ambitious plans.
Originally, the team had set out to raise $5 million to develop the core technology. However, their vision quickly expanded and the need for more funding became clear.
“In order to build the basic technology, we wanted to raise $5 million, originally,” said Heinrich. But with the scope of their project expanding, they found a strong demand for their services.
What sets 0G apart is their modular AI blockchain, designed to address the pain points of on-chain AI applications in the web3 ecosystem. The company’s competitors, such as Celestia and EigenLayer, are also focused on providing modular solutions.
Modularity allows developers to select the components needed to create a blockchain system or application, similar to choosing from a menu at a restaurant. This allows for greater customization and optimization for individual needs.
“Our goal is we can now enable any blockchain to be as performant and inexpensive as a web2 application,” Heinrich explains the benefits of their modular approach.
Compared to Ethereum, a monolithic blockchain with a single structure, 0G offers more flexibility and scalability. Heinrich believes this is essential for the integration of centralized AI technologies on the blockchain.
Co-founders Ming Wu, Fan Long, and Thomas Yao all contributed to the success of the “hybrid blockchain” Conflux Network, while Heinrich founded garten (formerly known as Oh My Green), a company that focuses on promoting healthy food and wellbeing in workplaces.
Heinrich notes a growing demand for decentralized storage and emphasizes the need for it to be completely decentralized. 0G’s data pipeline also enables scalability and storage of models to partner with others who handle the execution layer.
“When we initially started our conversations with players in the market, we found a clear demand for this aspect of data availability and storage. It’s not only crucial for scaling blockchain systems, but also to make on-chain AI a possibility,” Heinrich said.
The team received a significant amount of interest from investors, with over $100 million in interest and offers from over 40 crypto-native institutions. Ultimately, they chose Hack VC as their lead investor and closed the round at 20 times oversubscribed.
“The investor community recognized the importance of our project and we partnered with the investors who could provide the most support,” Heinrich mentioned.
With a large distributed cap table, 0G stays true to the values of the web3 community. The initial capital will be used to expand the team and build 0G’s market functionality, community, and ecosystem.
Currently, 0G does not have its own token, but Heinrich confirms that it is a web3 company and there are plans to release a token in the future.
0G’s chain is designed for high throughput, with a target of 50 Gbps compared to competitor rates of 1.5 MBps. This means faster and cheaper transactions, making it ideal for on-chain AI and gaming applications. Without efficient throughput, costs can quickly add up, making it challenging for developers to utilize these technologies on the blockchain.
Heinrich envisions a future where any Web2.0 application can be built on-chain, and 0G plans to launch on mainnet by the third quarter of this year. The team is also looking to collaborate with layer-2 blockchains like Polygon and Arbitrum, as well as high-performance teams building decentralized applications with a high number of potential users.
“Once our chain is fully operational on mainnet, any Web2.0 application can be built on-chain. We see potential partnerships with layer-2 blockchains like Polygon and multiple high-performance teams building decentralized applications,” Heinrich said.
Achieving infinite capacity is the ultimate goal for 0G, similar to how Amazon’s web server allows users to spin up as many servers as needed. A critical component of their design is the consensus network, bringing nodes together to agree on one data set.
0G plans to enable new use cases, such as on-chain AI, on-chain gaming, and high-frequency decentralized finance (DeFi). With minimal gas costs per transaction, 0G aims to drive innovation by addressing issues that were previously deemed difficult to solve.
“We want our technology to serve humanity and take many different forms. In the near term, we plan on building decentralized models and aiding high-performance use cases on the blockchain,” Heinrich said.
