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Venice AI

Category: Foundation Models / LLMs

Privacy-first AI platform offering access to 200+ AI models with zero data retention, uncensored inference, and a dual-token crypto economy. Venice AI was founded in 2024. The company is led by Erik Voorhees. Based in San Francisco, California, United States. Team size: 11-50. Total funding raised: $65M. Latest round: Series A. Key investors include Dragonfly, Coinbase Ventures, North Island Ventures, F-Prime, Archetype, Morgan Creek, Liquid2 Ventures, Founders' Co-op.

Founded
2024
Headquarters
San Francisco, California, United States
Team size
11-50
Total funding
$65M

Value proposition

Private, uncensored access to 200+ AI models (text, image, video, audio, code) via a privacy architecture that does not log or store user prompts or responses. Offers tiered privacy: anonymized access to proprietary models, zero-retention on open-source models, TEE hardware-secured inference, and end-to-end encryption.

Products and solutions

Venice AI Platform (text chat, image generation, video generation, audio/music, code generation, web search, AI agents), OpenAI-compatible API for developers, VVV/DIEM dual-token system for staking-based AI credits, Mobile app, Consumer subscriptions (Pro $18/mo, Pro+ $68/mo, Max $200/mo), 200+ AI models including Claude, GPT, Gemini, DeepSeek

Unique value

Only AI platform combining zero-data-retention privacy architecture with access to 200+ frontier and open-source models, uncensored inference, and a crypto-token incentive model for compute access — all profitable with $70M+ ARR.

Target customer

Privacy-conscious consumers, developers building AI agents, creators (image/video), and enterprise teams needing unrestricted AI access with data privacy guarantees.

Industries served

Consumer AI, Developer Tools, Creator Economy, Crypto/Web3

Technology advantage

Four-tier privacy architecture (Anonymized → Private → TEE → E2EE); self-hosted open-source models on Venice-controlled GPUs; zero data retention by default; no user data stored on servers — conversations stay client-side; dual-token (VVV/DIEM) staking economy for AI compute; profitable and bootstrapped for 2 years before first external fundraise.

How they differentiate

Unlike OpenAI and Anthropic which log user data and apply heavy content filters, Venice stores zero user data, offers uncensored models, and enables anonymous usage with no account required. Unlike Perplexity (search-focused), Venice is a full creative platform with text/image/video/audio generation plus API access. Venice also offers crypto-native token staking (VVV/DIEM) for compute credits.

Main competitors

ChatGPT (OpenAI), Claude (Anthropic), Perplexity AI

Key partnerships

OpenClaw integration for agent deployment, partners with 200+ AI model providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, Mistral, DeepSeek, NVIDIA, Black Forest Labs, ElevenLabs, Runway, etc.) as inference partners, Open-source ecosystem via HuggingFace and community tools.

Major milestones

Launched May 2024, Hit 3M users and turned profitable Q1 2026, Launched VVV token January 2025, Launched DIEM token August 2025, Raised $65M Series A at $1B valuation July 2026 (first external funding)

Growth metrics

$70M+ annualized revenue run rate (profitable as of Q1 2026); 3M+ active users; 850K+ unique monthly website visitors; 1.7M API calls per day; ~45 employees

Market positioning

Privacy-first alternative to mainstream AI platforms (ChatGPT, Claude). Positioned as the "private, uncensored" option with feature parity to ChatGPT but built on crypto/libertarian values. Profitable with $70M+ ARR, 3M active users, 1.7M daily API calls.

Geographic focus

Global (US-headquartered, remote team with hubs in San Francisco and Seattle)

About Erik Voorhees

Ex-Founder & CEO ShapeShift; Co-Founder Satoshi Dice; Crypto/bitcoin advocate since 2011. University of Puget Sound.

Official website: