Robots & Riches: Funding Frenzy! 🤖💰

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One gathers the crypto chaps are rather excited about Openmind, claiming their tinkering will solve the problem of robots being frightfully unsociable. A “missing layer,” you see. Honestly, one suspects someone simply misplaced a crucial bit of wiring.

$20M Boost: Pantera Leads Investment in Openmind

Dan Morehead, of Pantera Capital – a name which sounds suspiciously like a Balkan potentate – has rather quietly, in the manner of a chap not wishing to cause a fuss, chucked twenty million dollars into the coffers of Openmind. They’re an AI outfit, naturally, and peddling open-source software which they assure us is the ‘missing layer’ in the wildly profitable, yet apparently disorganized, world of robotics. Coinbase Ventures and a gaggle of others joined in the fun, presumably hoping for a slice of the mechanical pie. 🥧

Morehead himself started Pantera back in 2003, a positively prehistoric age in the crypto game. He was remarkably quick off the mark in 2013, forming a fund just as the Ethereum whitepaper made its debut. Openmind, on the other hand, sprang from the brain of Jan Liphardt, a professor at Stanford – a place producing professors like a particularly prolific hen. The firm’s produced two doohickeys, OM1 and Fabric. One’s an operating system for robots, and the other is a protocol that allows these mechanical contraptions to gossip with each other. Jolly good show, what?

The basic notion, as near as one can ascertain, is that robots are currently rather selfish, operating in their own little silos and failing to share their knowledge. Apparently, this is hindering progress, although one might suggest they simply need a good talking-to. Pantera enthuses about this “missing layer” – decentralized open-source software, naturally – and its capacity to revolutionize robotics by fostering collaboration between machines. It’s all remarkably modern… and slightly baffling. 🤔

“If we want intelligent machines operating in open environments, we need an open intelligence network,” declared Nihal Maunder, a partner at Pantera. A statement so profound it demands a spot of tea and a thoughtful biscuit. “Openmind is doing for robotics what Linux and Ethereum did for software.” A bold claim, indeed. One can only hope it doesn’t involve robots demanding Earl Grey. ☕

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2025-08-13 08:00