Venice AI, a privacy-first AI platform, has achieved unicorn status with a $65 million Series A funding round at a $1 billion valuation. The round was led by crypto-focused venture firm Dragonfly, with participation from Coinbase Ventures and North Island Ventures.
Founded by Bitcoin pioneer Erik Voorhees (former founder of ShapeShift and Satoshi Dice), Venice offers access to more than 200 AI models while prioritizing user privacy. The platform has grown to over 3 million active users and 850,000 unique monthly visitors, processing an average of 1.7 million API calls per day. The company is already profitable with annualized run-rate revenues exceeding $70 million.
Venice's approach differs from mainstream AI platforms in several key ways:
- Privacy by design: All user input is encrypted and unencrypted client-side, routed through an external proxy before processing, with no data stored on Venice's systems.
- Multi-model access: Users can freely choose from text, image, audio, and video AI models, including uncensored and open-source options.
- End-to-end encryption: Available for subscribers, ensuring queries remain private even from model providers.
- Neutral platform philosophy: Voorhees compares Venice's approach to Bitcoin — treating AI as a neutral tool that respects user agency.
The company has launched two crypto tokens (VVV and DIEM) to power its ecosystem, though only about 8% of users pay with crypto. Venice plans to use the fresh funding to buy GPUs and build its own data centers, reducing reliance on leased infrastructure and improving gross margins.