The Web3 + AI Funding Bulletin | July 2026
A summary of the most substantial investments into the Web3 + AI ecosystem over the month of July.
Hello and welcome!
This is The Web3 + AI Newsletter - your definitive guide to the intersection of blockchain and AI.
Today’s edition is special for two reasons.
First, I spent the past week migrating the entire Web3 + AI archive to Substack, so now I’m excited to welcome all new readers joining us here. I hope you’ll enjoy what’s ahead. 🤩
Second, after a two-year hiatus, I’m bringing back The Web3 + AI Funding Bulletin - my recurring roundup of the latest investments shaping the crypto × AI ecosystem.
Thank you for being here! Let’s dive in.
Web3 + AI Money Rounds
Venice AI Raises $65M to Advance Private AI
The privacy-focused AI inference platform Venice.ai raised $65M at a $1B valuation in a Series A led by crypto-focused venture firm Dragonfly and backed by Coinbase Ventures, North Island Ventures, and others.
I covered the round in more detail in Daily #69.
World Collects $52.5M to Strengthen Digital ID Infra
In a funding round led by Pantera Capital and backed by Bain Capital Crypto, Selini Capital, Susquehanna Crypto, and Eightco Holdings, Inc., World raised $52.5M. The round was performed through a private sale of World’s $WLD token.
Axis Robotics Attracts $12M to Scale Physical AI
The robot intelligence company Axis Robotics announced a $12M Seed round, led by Hack VC and supported by Nomad Capital, Pi Network Ventures, 10K Ventures, along with top angel investors.
Physical AI has a data problem. Models need more than static datasets—they need diverse data that evolves with them.
Axis’s compounding Data Engine is here to fix this gap. Our end-to-end closed-loop workflow unites large-scale simulation, egocentric real-world capture, and human-in-the-loop post-training to unlock scalable production of structured, multi-diverse robotic data — the core missing piece for Physical AI.
Nous Research Reportedly in Talks to Raise $75M
According to TechCrunch, the open-source AI lab Nous Research is in talks to raise $75M at a $1.5B valuation, with Robot Ventures leading the round.
The start-up, championing Decentralized AI development and training, is behind the Hermes agent framework - the capability compounding alternative to OpenClaw. If this round realizes, it will reconfirm the wider industry’s push for open-source AI.
Nous Research was founded in 2023 by Jeffrey Quesnelle, Karan Malhotra, Ryan Teknium, and Shivani Mitra. The project’s total funding before the current round reportedly stood at around $70 million, from backers including Paradigm, Robot Ventures, North Island Ventures, OSS Capital, and Balaji Srinivasan.
Other Noteworthy Web3 + AI Money Rounds
AI-Driven autonomous finance infrastructure TrueDAO closed a $10M round, led by Brevan Howard Digital, with participation from Zee Prime Capital, Jump Capital, and other investors. This funding will support the development of TrueDAO’s core AI protocol, AI-powered risk management and stress testing systems, security audits and broader ecosystem partnerships.
TrueDAO@TrueDAOAIWe’re excited to share that TrueDAO has completed a US$10 million strategic financing round. The round was led by Brevan Howard Digital, with participation from Zee Prime Capital, Jump Capital, and other investors. This funding will support the development of TrueDAO’s core AI
1:11 PM · Jul 11, 2026 · 11.3K Views8 Replies · 1 Repost · 19 LikesPredictive behavioral AI network Thea AI raised $8M from Maven 11, The Spartan Group, Manifold Trading, Hack VC, Fisher8 Capital, Galois Capital, and others to advance its federated trust-minimized settlement layer designed to unify access and coordination across intelligent applications.
THEA@Thea_AITHEA has closed a $8 million strategic funding round to advance our behavioral AI infrastructure and enable its next stage of growth.4:36 PM · Jul 2, 2026 · 34.4K Views29 Replies · 16 Reposts · 144 LikesKOR collected $7.5M at a $100M valuation to build the creative asset clearinghouse. The funds came from 1kx, Blockchain Capital, Republic Crypto, Animoca Brands, Alumni Ventures, Avalanche, SevenX Ventures, Sfermion, and Solana.
Perceptron Network raised $6.5M by Sigma Capital, Selini Capital, QCP, Polygon Labs Ventures, CoinDCX, Momentum 6, DeFi Capital, Walrus Foundation, Aethir, Colosseum, Tempo Finance, New Tribe Capital, LLC, Digital Consensus Fund, and CodeCraft to solve AI data bottleneck.
Decentralized AI inference provider DGrid AI raised $5M in a Seed funding round from Waterdrip Capital, IoTeX, and others.
Web3 + AI Mergers & Acquisitions
Fhenix Acquires Sunscreen
As I have often covered here the Web3 companies that combine blockchain technology with fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) to achieve a fully encrypted decentralized computation. With Zama - the entity sppearheading the FHE R&D, at the helm, those include Fhenix, Inco, Mind Network, Octra Labs, Primus Labs, Privasea AB, and others.
Now, this FHE space has started consolidating. At the beginning of July, Sunscreen (acquired by Fhenix) announced its acquisition by Fhenix:
We’ve spent 4+ years building at the frontier of applied cryptography. As we got to know the Fhenix team over the last year, it’s become clear they’ve built a powerhouse team ( Guy Zyskind, Guy Itzhaki, Christopher Peikert, Carter Woetzel, to name just a few) best positioned to bring production-grade FHE to the world.
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