YeagerAI has announced the successful closing of a $7.5 million seed round led by North Island Ventures for its AI-powered Intelligent Blockchain, GenLayer. The round saw participation from world-class web3 VCs, including Node Capital, Arrington Capital, TykheBlock, ZK Ventures, Cogitent, MS2 Capital, Samara AG, DCF Capital, WAGMI Ventures, Sigmas Capital, Magnus Capital, MH Ventures, BlockBuilders, and multiple angel investors. This funding boosts GenLayer’s mission to build the next evolution of smart contracts powered by artificial intelligence.
GenLayer is also supported by industry veterans including Arthur Hayes and his family office investment fund, Maelstrom, further strengthening the project’s expert network and connectivity in the web3 industry.
GenLayer is the first Intelligent Blockchain, enabling smart contracts to use Large Language Models (LLMs) to access the Internet’s knowledge to make complex decisions in a decentralized manner, known as Intelligent Contracts. Intelligent Contracts can natively connect to the Internet, process natural language, and handle non-deterministic operations, enabling a whole new generation of decentralized protocols and primitives that are not possible under the limitations of current blockchain infrastructure.
Travis Scher, Partner at North Island Ventures, said: “GenLayer is leveraging recent advances in AI to bring more of the internet onchain, enabling improvements in today’s dApps and unlocking entirely new possibilities. We’re thrilled to support Albert and his team in their mission.”
Amos Meiri, Founding Partner at Node Capital, added: “Some of the core limitations the industry faces stem from the need for humans in the loop and lack of access to real-world data. GenLayer solves this by leveraging AI and opening the door to completely new use cases. We’re excited to support the team on this adventure.”
The GenLayer network, composed of a Consensus Layer and Virtual Machine, leverages AI to achieve consensus on subjective tasks through a unique mechanism called Optimistic Democracy. This delegated Proof-of-Stake (dPOS) system involves a randomly selected subset of five validators, each connected to a different LLM. The leader proposes an output, which the other four validators compare against their own results, voting on whether to accept it. If a majority agrees, the transaction is processed; if not, a new leader is chosen. An appeal window follows validation, allowing participants to post a bond and double the validator set for a re-evaluation.
Unlike typical blockchains with deterministic outputs, GenLayer enables Intelligent Contract executions that can vary, using an equivalence principle defined by the application developer to ensure trust and transparency.
“I believe GenLayer will be a zero-to-one innovation, and we’re grateful to all our investors for sharing our vision,” said Albert Castellana, Co-Founder and CEO of GenLayer. “Using Artificial Intelligence to enable consensus on subjective decisions will massively expand the design space for truly decentralized applications.”
About GenLayer
GenLayer is the first Intelligent Blockchain, enabling smart contracts to use AI models and access the Internet’s knowledge to make complex decisions in a decentralized manner: Intelligent Contracts. Intelligent Contracts can natively connect to the Internet, process natural language, and handle non-deterministic operations, enabling a whole new generation of smart contract logic that is not possible under the limitations of current blockchain infrastructure.
GenLayer is a decentralized protocol being built by YeagerAI, co-founded by CEO Albert Castellana, CPO Edgars Nemše and CAIO Jose María Lago. Albert co-founded the NEM.io Foundation and was the CPO at RadixDLT where he met Edgars, who was a Product Lead and with whom he co-founded StakeHound, the first liquid staking solution. José has a background in AI and Machine Learning and designed the brain image diagnostics Neural Network at Methinks AI. GenLayer is their latest project after 10+ years of building and researching blockchain and AI. YeagerAI is an AI research and production lab that combines artificial intelligence expertise with vast experience in blockchain innovation to build the future of smart contracts.