Exclusive: a16z backs Cambrian to build AI agents for crypto finance

Cambrian, a startup building infrastructure for AI agents with financial intelligence, has raised $5.9 million in a seed round led by a16z’s Crypto Startup Accelerator. Cambrian is joining a16z’s fourth accelerator cohort, CSX 04, in San Francisco with plans to launch its testnet and mainnet later this year, crypto.news can exclusively report. Cambrian also received funding from Stanford’s Blockchain Builder’s Fund and other angel investors. Cambrian’s goal is to empower artificial intelligence agents, autonomous financial bots and tools with verifiable high-quality onchain and offchain data, to make smarter, risk-aware decisions in real time. Its network aggregates data such as blockchain activity, market pricing, and social sentiment, and offers a consensus mechanism to validate this information for agents that require verified data inputs. Built by AI and blockchain veterans The project is led by Sam Green, a former co-founder of Semiotic Labs and core contributor to The Graph , where he helped secure a $60 million grant and developed infrastructure used in over $80 billion of trading volume. Green’s academic background includes a PhD in reinforcement learning and a stint at a U.S. Department of Energy research lab. Crypto is quickly moving into the future with autonomous financial agents, and we intend to be the best source of financial intelligence for their high-consequence tasks,” said Green. First use cases and strategic partners Cambrian’s first use case is Deep42, an autonomous agent that delivers DeFi insights on X (@DeepFortyTwo), serving as a demo of the network’s capabilities. We are Deep42 🪴 Our hyperaware DeFi intelligence helps humans and agents make their best onchain decisions. Alpha only has value in scarcity. Deep42 goes private at 10,000 followers 🔒 Follow-gated features coming soon. https://t.co/TUXxcBDTg9 — Deep42 🪴 (@DeepFortyTwo) February 18, 2025 Key partners such as EigenLayer, Virtuals, and Eliza Labs are already collaborating with Cambrian to build out applications in agentic finance. EigenLayer AVSs provide a convenient way for developers to quickly build verifiable runtime environments for these agents. But verifiable financial agents also need data with strong performance and security guarantees, so I’m excited that Cambrian will be launched as an AVS. I expect Cambrian to serve a key role as a verifiable sensory layer for the coming wave of agentic finance,” Nader Dabit, Director of Developer Relations, Eigen Labs said. As Cambrian’s network takes shape, it aims to provide the foundational intelligence layer for AI agents operating across the decentralized economy. The company believes in a future where humans, AI, and nature “all thrive in harmony.” “Cambrian’s first foray into that future begins with advancements in agentic finance.”