Venture capital is flooding into the cryptocurrency and blockchain space. Many focused on artificial intelligence (AI) and decentralized finance (DeFi) projects are widely attracting big funding. Yupp, Frachtis and Blueprint Finance all were thrilled to announce their recent funding successes. Collectively, they went on to raise hundreds of millions of dollars! This flood of capital is another indicator that excitement and investment in the sector continue to grow. Yet total value locked (TVL) on DeFi platforms remains far below its high water mark.

Yupp, a startup building an experimentation platform to compare outputs from all the top AI models, just closed a $33 million seed round. This funding round was led by Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto arm, a16z Crypto. The platform aggregates AI models, including prominent names like ChatGPT, Claude, DeepSeek, and Llama, providing users with a comprehensive comparison tool.

Yupp’s platform gives users the ability to earn cryptocurrency for their reviews of AI-generated content. More importantly, this unique approach encourages users to become active participants. It leverages the astonishing might of our collective human ingenuity to train, develop and improve AI models. With the new capital in hand, the company expects to make some big moves. As it looks to deepen its work in more varied geographies, including Latin America, Africa, Asia-Pacific, and the European Union. The platform operates using blockchain technology.

The a16z team has expressed enthusiasm for Yupp's vision, characterizing it as a transformative force that converts:

"human judgment into a renewable economic resource." - a16z team

Frachtis, a fellow crypto investor, has just launched, with the backing of a $20 million pre-seed fund. The venture is supported by Thai fund Theta Capital, and Czech-based RockawayX, alongside other investors. Frachtis has made 13 investments in pre-seed and seed-stage deals so far. In particular, they’re doubling down on DeFi and AI protocols.

Recently, Blueprint Finance has been the talk of the town by raising a remarkable $9.5 million in its recent seed funding round. This round’s backers included prominent investors DACM, Delphi Ventures, Arche Capital, and Lvna Capital. The company is busy getting ready for their mainnet launch and everything that will come with it. This eagerly awaited project will premiere in the third quarter of this year.

Forward movement In spite of these positive developments, the DeFi sector is still grappling with accusations of decentralized turmoil. The total value locked (TVL) throughout DeFi platforms remains under the all-time high set nearly three years ago. This is indicative of a continued lack of recovery in the sector from previous market corrections.

Forward-looking venture capitalists are still investing in ambitious, energetic projects such as Yupp, Frachtis, and Blueprint Finance. This is a real signal of their optimism about the long-term potential for both AI and DeFi. These competitive funding rounds arm the selected companies with resources that are key. With this support, they are able to deepen their platforms, expand their adoption and accelerate development within the larger blockchain ecosystem.

AI and blockchain technology are meeting at an unprecedented pace. Projects such as Yupp are leading the charge, trailblazing through really cool new use cases. By leveraging blockchain to incentivize user participation and ensure transparency, Yupp aims to create a valuable resource for evaluating and improving AI models.

As the cryptocurrency landscape moves forward, VC will undoubtedly be a driving factor in determining that future. Recent funding rounds for Yupp, Frachtis, and Blueprint Finance illustrate a strong investor appetite. They are hungry to see creative, bold work that has the potential to turn existing industries upside down and create new markets.

The successful completion and deployment of these projects is entirely dependent on their technical expertise. Beyond that, they need to compete for users, foster deep communities, and outsmart an often confusing and detailed regulatory landscape rooted in cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. Combined, these companies have the potential to power the next wave of innovation in the crypto space. With the right vision, execution, and support, they have the power to make a real difference.