GAIB Raises $5M Pre-Seed to Build the First Economic Layer for AI Compute

We are thrilled to announce the completion of our $5 million pre-seed funding round. The round was co-led by Hack VC, Faction, and Hashed, alongside strategic investments from prominent groups including The Spartan Group, L2IV, CMCC Global, Animoca Brands, IVC, MH Ventures, Presto Labs, J17, IDG Blockchain, 280 Capital, Aethir, and NEAR Foundation, as well as angel investors including Alyssa Tsai, Ben Wee, Brian Retford, Charlie Hu, Chelsea, Chris Yin, Chunda McCain, Daniel Lubarov, Evans Huangfu, Gideon Daitz, Hanzhi, Igal B, Josie Leung, Justin Wang, Lucas Kozinski, Michael Heinrich, Michael Jin, Nabeel Qadri, Rabia, Vanishree Rao, Yosef Soso, and 2Square Capital.

This funding round marks a significant milestone in our journey to pioneer the financialization of compute and build out the AI economy.

The funds will be utilized to accelerate the development of GAIB’s groundbreaking infrastructure, focusing on expanding our product offerings, enhancing tokenized GPU solutions, and strengthening our partnerships with key players in the AI and crypto industries.

About GAIB: What Problems Do We Solve?

GAIB addresses two 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:

GAIB builds the first economic layer for AI compute by tokenizing enterprise-grade GPUs and their yields. This innovation 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.

The Inspiration Behind GAIB:

The name GAIB draws inspiration from the movie Dune, where “GAIB” signifies “the unseen” or “the future.” It also encapsulates the three pillars of GAIB’s focus: GPU, AI, and Financialization. In the AI era, GPUs are the new assets, and compute is the new currency — akin to spice in Dune. GAIB is on a mission to unlock the trillion-dollar AI and compute market, enabling revolutionary financial innovations centered around mobilizing the compute economy and democratizing community access. After all, “He who controls compute, controls the universe!”

Roadmap and Progress: Building the Future, Step by Step

GAIB has been diligently building toward its vision. Apart from the fundraise, recent highlights include:

• Deployed the first 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. In the future, GAIB will tokenize these GPUs and their yields, bringing them onto the blockchain. This will allow users to directly invest in, trade, and own GPUs as assets — a groundbreaking opportunity. (link)
• Strategic Partnership with io.net: GAIB has formed key partnerships with io.net to drive innovation and enhance access to GPU compute. The collaboration will focus on key areas such as strategic marketing, community engagement, technical integration, and business development initiatives. (link)
• Product development: We’ve successfully built the prototype of our tokenization protocol and are gearing up for the upcoming pilot launch — a major step towards bringing our vision to life!
• Asset pipeline: We have a pipeline of around a billion dollars worth of GPUs to be tokenized on-chain.
• AiFi Summit: We educated the wider community about the significance of AiFi (financializing AI through blockchain) by successfully hosting AiFi Summits during TOKEN 2049 and DevCon 2024, which cumulatively attracted 3,100 registrations, 1,200 attendees. The two events featured prominent speakers from Base, NEAR Protocol, Monad, Story Protocol, BNB Chain, Nansen, Aethir, io.net, Plume Network, Movement Labs, Sahara AI, and so on.

We will keep working hard to reach the upcoming milestones, including:

• Technical Architecture: Over the coming weeks, we will progressively unveil our technical architecture through the release of detailed technical documentation and a series of Medium articles. Our goal is to enhance transparency in the development of our protocol. These publications will showcase how we are building a decentralized network as the cornerstone of our financial infrastructure, reducing trust assumptions and democratizing access and increasing transparency to our protocol.
• Testnet: We are preparing our product launch in the coming months. This will enable users to access yield backed by real AI compute revenue streams and explore innovative DeFi building blocks tailored to diverse risk and reward preferences.
• Partnerships: Stay tuned for the announcements of strategic partnerships that will strengthen our asset and investor pipeline, drive innovation in DeFi use cases to meet user demand, and accelerate the growth of our ecosystem toward the AiFi future!

Stay updated on our milestones and collaborations by exploring our X and Medium updates.

Long-Term Vision: A Flourishing AI Compute Economy

GAIB’s long-term vision is a future where AI is not just a tool for a few, but a resource for all. We aim to:

• Empower the community to own and access AI compute and their juicy yield.
• Lead the industry in innovative financial infrastructure tied to compute assets.
• Build a decentralized AI economy that fosters growth, inclusion, and sustainability.

Through our efforts, we are redefining how AI compute assets are compounded and democratized, paving the way for a more equitable AI economy.

Join the Movement

We’re just getting started. Join our community on Telegram and Discord, and follow us on X to stay updated as we continue to innovate. We are also actively hiring passionate talents to join our research, business development, and marketing teams. Please reach out to mathilda@gaib.ai via email if you are interested. Together, let’s shape the future of AI and compute!