Key Points
- YZi Labs formerly Binance Labs invested an undisclosed amount in Vana crypto/AI startup.
- Changpeng Zhao recently took an active role in YZi Labs.
YZi Labs announced an investment in Vana, a crypto/AI startup focused on data ownership. The investment amount was reportedly not disclosed so far. Binance’s co-founder, CZ, will be an advisor for Vana.
Today, VANA price recorded a sharp surge of over 25% following the announcement.
YZi Labs’ Investment in Vana Closed in January 2025
Vana co-founder, Anna Kazaluszkas, said that the investment was closed last month, with YZi Labs as the sole investor.
So far, there are no details on the structure of the round of post-investment valuation.
This new investment comes after Vana launched its mainnet and token in December 2024.
VANA token recorded a price spike today.
VANA is Up by Over 25%
At the moment of writing this article, VANA is trading at $7.78, up by around 25% for the day. The coin has a market cap of over $234 million.
Before the announcement, VANA was trading at almost $6, and the coin’s price spiked by over 16% following the news, topping $8.1 and a market cap of over $244 million.
Besides YZi Labs, other notable previous investors in Vana include Paradigm, Coinbase Ventures, and Polychain Capital.
What is Vana?
Vana is a crypto/AI startup based in San Francisco founded in 2021 by Kazlauskas and Arthur “Art” Abal, who met in a class at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, having a common goal to accelerate AI while enabling global user participation in new digital economies.
Data Ownership
Vana’s L1 is focused on data ownership and allows users to:
- Pool their data into Data DAOs
- Earn rewards
- Retain ownership in the AI models built from their contributions
Data DAOs – Central to Vana’s Vision
Data DAOs are a priority to the Vana vision of user-owned AI.
Such entities place groups of users in direct control of their data, and aggregate the data around certain user cases that can be monetized by organizations to train AI models.
What’s Next for Vana?
After securing this latest funding round, Vana plans include the following:
- Expanding its DataDAO ecosystem
- Helping launch data tokens for more than 16 DATADAOs
- Attract more data contributors
- Onboard more DataDAOs
- Extend data financialization beyond crypto in finance, social media, healthcare, and mobility
Vana – YZi Labs’ 1st AI Investment Since Rebranding
Vana is the first YZi Labs investment into AI since it was rebranded from Binance Labs in January. Before the rebranding, the firm backed a few crypto/AI projects including MyShell and Sahara AI.
Now, the firm’s focus shifted and expanded beyond Web3 to include AI and biotech. A spokesperson for YZi Labs said that the firm is also open to investing in standalone AI and biotech projects to capture the full innovation spectrum.
Binance’s CZ is actively advising a few portfolio companies of YZi Labs and reportedly remains open to speaking with early-stage founders.
