Venice AI closes $65M Series A, hits $1B valuation
VC & Fundraising ·
Crypto-AI startup Venice AI has secured $65 million in Series A financing at a $1 billion equity valuation, with Dragonfly Capital leading the round.
The raise pushes Venice into unicorn territory, a threshold confirmed by TechCrunch, which described the company's privacy-first AI platform as gaining momentum. The Series A was first detailed by The Block, which reported that Dragonfly anchored the funding at the $1 billion mark.
Venice was co-founded with involvement from Erik Voorhees, who has publicly pushed for privacy-centered alternatives to mainstream AI chatbots such as ChatGPT. That positioning appears central to the company's pitch to investors: building AI infrastructure that does not depend on centralized data collection, a model that has drawn backing beyond Dragonfly alone.
Additional investors named across coverage of the round include Coinbase Ventures and North Island Ventures, both cited as participants alongside Dragonfly in the $65 million raise. A round summary graphic circulated by icoanalytics.orgPrivacy-first%20 also referenced the deal's privacy-first framing, consistent with the broader description of Venice's product direction.
News of the raise also spread through social channels, including a post on X referencing the funding figures, adding to the seven distinct sources tracking the deal.
What remains unspecified across the available reporting is the post-money share structure, the size of Dragonfly's individual check, and any token-related component tied to the equity round. Also unclear is Venice's current user base or revenue figures, which have not been disclosed in connection with the valuation. Whether additional strategic investors join in a later close, and how Venice plans to differentiate its privacy-first approach technically from other AI infrastructure providers, are open questions for now.