Decentralized AI startup Nous Research has raised $50 million in a Series A round led by crypto venture giant Paradigm, marking one of the largest investments at the intersection of blockchain and artificial intelligence to date.

According to an April 25 report from Fortune, the funding round values Nous at a $1 billion token valuation. Previous investors include Distributed Global, North Island Ventures, and Delphi Digital, who contributed to Nous’s earlier $20 million seed rounds.

Operating since 2022, Nous Research is stepping into the spotlight with the latest fundraising to develop open-source AI models powered by decentralized infrastructure.

The company leverages the Solana blockchain to coordinate and incentivize global participation in training its AI models, aiming to challenge centralized giants like OpenAI and DeepSeek.

Nous Research announcing Nous Psyche on Solana. Source: Nous Research

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Nous harnesses global idle compute power for AI training

Founded by AI researchers, including collaborators like Diederik Kingma (co-inventor of the Adam optimizer), Nous is taking a different approach from typical crypto-AI projects.

Instead of relying on centralized data centers, it enables individuals worldwide to contribute idle computing power for AI training.

Blockchain technology underpins this model, ensuring secure, incentivized participation while mitigating risks like data poisoning through features such as Byzantine fault tolerance.

“We very much came from a mentality that we want to create and serve the world’s best AI,” co-founder Karan Malhotra told Fortune.

Per the report, the 20-person team at Nous Research will allocate much of the new capital toward scaling compute resources and advancing research.

In December 2024, Nous told Venture Beat that it is pre-training a 15-billion-parameter LLM in a decentralized manner, livestreaming progress to showcase transparency and performance.

Meanwhile, Paradigm’s backing signals a deepening interest in AI within crypto venture circles.

“This open, community-oriented approach is a powerful contrast to the closed, centralized efforts from incumbent labs,” Paradigm partner Arjun Balaji reportedly told the outlet.

Related: Crypto users cool with AI dabbling with their portfolios: Survey

Paradigm becomes top-performing crypto VC

Paradigm is one of the biggest and most successful crypto venture capital firms.

In March, Web3 data platform Kaito AI ranked Paradigm as the top-performing crypto VC over the past year, posting an impressive 11.80% performance metric, outperforming other major players like Alliance (10.64%), Dragonfly (8.32%), a16z (6.94%) and Multicoin Capital (5.86%).

Source: Rory

Founded by Coinbase’s Fred Ehrsam and ex-Sequoia partner Matt Huang, Paradigm has built a strong reputation for spotting high-potential crypto projects early.

Its portfolio includes leading DeFi platforms like Uniswap (UNI) and dYdX, as well as consistent backing for Ethereum scaling solutions such as Optimism.

Paradigm also led a $255 million round for StarkNet, a key player in zero-knowledge rollup technology.

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