xTAO, the decentralized artificial intelligence (AI) network startup launched by WonderFi co-founder Karia Samaroo (formerly known as Ben), has confirmed that it closed $22.8 million USD ($31 million CAD) in financing through subscription receipts, a form of equity dependent on closing a transaction.
Samaroo told BetaKit through email that the financing, which was completed through a merger with Vancouver-based Adrianna Ventures, officially closed on July 11. There was no lead investor, Samaroo said, and the funding has been treated as a seed round.
“Bittensor is incentivizing open and permission-less creation of machine intelligence, providing an alternative to the centralized AI oligopoly.”
William Wolf,
Arche Capital
Financing came from multiple digital-asset-focused venture capital companies including Animoca Brands, Arca, Arche Capital, Borderless Capital, Digital Currency Group (DCG), FalconX, Hypersphere Ventures, Off the Chain Capital, Republic, and Stratos.
Past funding has come from Arca, DCG, and Off the Chain as well as crypto-oriented VC firms Cadenza Capital, Contango Digital Assets, EV3 Ventures, Nickel5 Investments, and The Venture Department.
Along with this round of funding, xTAO listed on the TSX Venture Exchange (TSXV) under the stock symbol XTAO.U as of July 22. Samaroo characterized this listing and the financing as “important milestones” for the startup as it focused on “advancing decentralized AI.”
The startup bases its platform on Bittensor, a cryptocurrency mining network where users exchange TAO tokens on the blockchain marketplace to obtain AI models and the computing resources to power those models. Supporters, including Arche Capital general partner William Wolf, see the technology as disrupting an industry where power is concentrated in a handful of companies that can either develop AI models or run large data centres.
“Bittensor is incentivizing open and permission-less creation of machine intelligence, providing an alternative to the centralized AI oligopoly,” Wolf said. “We’re very excited to invest in xTAO because it brings structure, visibility, and capital access to Bittensor.”
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Samaroo co-founded WonderFi in February 2021 along with Kartik Bajaj, Cong Ly, and Dean Sutton. While WonderFi was the first Canadian-regulated crypto trading platform to list on the Toronto Stock Exchange, starting in June 2022, a cryptocurrency market crash the same year prompted layoffs. Former Bitbuy executive Dean Skurka took over from Samaroo as CEO in October 2022 in a move described as “mutual,” although Samaroo remained the board chair until December 2023.
Before xTAO, Samaroo co-founded BitMind in July 2024. It claims to use Bittensor to help spot AI-generated content based on real people without their consent.
The moves come soon after United States-based (US) Robinhood completed important steps in its effort to acquire WonderFi. Both companies and the Supreme Court of British Columbia have approved the $250-million deal, which is poised to close in the second half of 2025, pending regulatory approval.
Feature image courtesy Shubham Dhage on Unsplash.