Multicoin Capital leads $3.5 million seed raise for Crunch Lab

Crunch Lab raised $3.5 million in seed funding led by the crypto-focused investment firm Multicoin Capital.

Factor Capital, Fabric VC and Elixir Capital also supported the round, bringing the startup's total funding raised to $5.3 million.

Crunch Lab is the core contributor behind CrunchDAO, a platform for AI researchers who can participate in distributed machine learning competitions. In addition to other rewards, CrunchDAO members can earn CRNCH tokens as part of their participation in competitions. CRNCH tokens give holders governance rights in addition to other CrunchDAO perks.

"Crunch Lab has just entered the prototyping phase with two new financial institutions, to provide them live data feeds," the startup's founder and CEO Jean Herelle told The Block. "This collaboration is expected to lead to $2 million additional ARR for Crunch Lab this year."

Crunch Lab previously closed its pre-seed round in 2021, which saw support from angel investors with quantitative finance or tech knowledge, Herelle said.