Nava Labs, an AI development company focused on creating safety infrastructure for autonomous agents, has publicly launched with an $8.3 million seed funding round. The investment was co-led by prominent cryptocurrency venture capital firms Polychain and Archetype, and closed on April 14, 2026.
The company, founded by engineers and researchers with backgrounds from EigenLayer and Carnegie Mellon, is building Nava AI—an open, full-stack, blockchain-based platform. The platform is designed to provide programmable guardrails and verification tools for developers and operators of AI agents that handle real capital and critical tasks. Use cases highlighted include prediction market trading, on-chain treasury management, high-frequency execution, and automated auditing.
"While AI agents are becoming indispensable for enterprise use cases, the infrastructure for agents to safely manage billions in value transfer has not existed. We built Nava to change that," said Vyas Krishnan, CEO and founder of Nava Labs. He explained that Nava AI aims to resolve the tension between AI's creative potential and the need for strict human oversight by preserving agent freedom while verifying actions stay within user-defined boundaries.
The platform's architecture introduces escrow mechanisms, dispute resolution, and economic backstops around agent activity. By running on an open blockchain ledger, every transaction contributes to shared risk models and data verification, aiming to reduce redundant computation and lay a foundation for scalable agent-mediated applications.
Investor confidence is strong. Olaf Carlson-Wee, CEO of Polychain, stated, "Just as SWIFT enabled digital finance and TCP/IP enabled the internet, Nava has the potential to underpin the agent-mediated economy." Danny Sursock, Partner at Archetype, emphasized the use of blockchain's immutable properties to provide resilience and accountability as AI agents gain enterprise adoption.
Additional investors in the round include FalconX, Hack VC, Seed Club Ventures, and several notable individuals such as EigenLayer founder Sreeram Kannan, who expressed support for Nava's mission to create accountable AI infrastructure. The funding will be used to accelerate the development of the Nava AI platform.
