Crypto industry veteran Erik Voorhees’ privacy-focused AI startup Venice AI has raised $65 million in a Series A funding round, achieving a $1 billion post-money valuation and unicorn status. The round was led by Dragonfly, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, North Island Ventures, Archetype, Liquid2 Ventures, and Morgan Creek Digital.
Voorhees announced the funding on July 1, 2026, via a post on X, stating that Venice now boasts over 3 million active users and turned profitable in the first quarter of 2026, even as larger AI firms continued to operate at a loss. “This aversion to ubiquitous centralized surveillance and control is our philosophical foundation, and upon it Venice is growing rapidly,” he wrote.
Launched in May 2024, Venice differentiates itself from mainstream chatbots like ChatGPT by refusing to store user conversations on centralized servers, processing an estimated 1.3 trillion tokens monthly with client-side encryption. The new capital will fund the construction of Venice’s own independent data centers, reducing its reliance on leased cloud infrastructure.
Simultaneously, the project trimmed the annual emission of its native VVV token to 3 million, awarded to stakers who support the network—a move that tightened supply. The VVV token reacted positively, rising approximately 12% in the hours following the announcement, according to market data.
Voorhees used the funding milestone to underscore what he sees as the industry’s defining challenge: AI-powered surveillance. He warned that “our flow of consciousness is increasingly under examination—our thoughts are now constructed in tandem with and at the permission of this dystopian apparatus,” and pledged that Venice would fight for First and Fourth Amendment protections for human–AI interaction. The round comes at a time when Washington is debating legislation to require warrants for AI-assisted government surveillance, and the FBI is expanding its own AI usage.
