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Olas, the Original AI Agent Project, Announces the “Agent App Store”, after Core Contributor Raises $13.8m Led by 1kx

Olas, the Original AI Agent Project, Announces the “Agent App Store”, after Core Contributor Raises $13.8m Led by 1kx

04-Feb-25


Olas, the leading project that brought AI agents to crypto since 2021, has seen its core contributor successfully raise $13.8 million in a funding round led by 1kx. This fundraise is the latest milestone for the ecosystem, which sees continuous innovations and uniquely enables user ownership of AI agents in the booming space.


Olas agents are currently doing over 700k transactions per month, growing at a rate of 30%+ MoM. In total, Olas agents have now powered over 3.5 million transactions across 9 blockchains, with 2m of these occurring between Olas agents themselves. This rapidly growing transaction volume stems from the diverse use cases Olas supports, including decentralized finance (DeFi) (through BabyDegen), prediction markets (through Olas Predict), social influencer agents (through agents.fun), and much more. Olas Predict has resulted in several million transactions, as showcased in a talk attended by Vitalik, who predicted such agents would be ‘ubiquitous’ in prediction markets.


Olas agents have seen exponential growth in adoption, as measured in daily active agents, driven by groundbreaking technological advancements across the Olas Stack and Olas Protocol. The introduction of Olas Staking in 2024, underpinned by the novel Proof of Active Agent (PoAA) that combines Proof of Stake and Proof of Work to reward useful agent activity using the OLAS token, has been a key enabler of growing daily active agents and coordinating agent swarms.


In conjunction with the fundraise, Olas is proud to unveil its latest innovation. Pearl, a streamlined desktop application enabling individuals to own and operate their autonomous Olas agents, now serves as the “agent app store”—bringing diverse use cases to users’ fingertips. Designed with a simple user experience in mind, Pearl empowers users to deploy and run agents for a wide range of use cases.


“Pearl represents a significant step forward in democratizing access to AI agents,” said David Minarsch, CEO of its core contributor. “By giving everyone AI agents they can not only use, but fully own and customize, we’re turning the status quo on its head. At a time when advances in AI can seem increasingly daunting, Olas is uniquely giving control of AI back to the user.”


David further added, “with Pearl becoming the “agent app store”, users can now simply select their preferred agents, or customize them further, then sit back and watch the agents work on their behalf. Finally, we are approaching a future where humans don’t have to sit glued to technology, but instead have hundreds of agents doing valuable things for them!”.


The recent funding round has introduced new strategic partners to the Olas ecosystem, all of whom are enthusiastic about the platform’s rapid and consistent growth. Alongside 1kx, funds include Tioga Capital, Sigil Fund, Zee Prime Capital, Spaceship DAO, Metropolis DAO, very early Ventures, Borderless, ARKN Ventures, Generative Ventures, Keyrock, Perridon Ventures, SMAPE Capital and various smaller funds. Angel investors included Leo Mindyuk (Co-founder, ML Tech) and Nicolas Gallet (CEO, Gallet Capital) amongst many others.


"We are thrilled to back David and the rest of the Olas team, who have been steadfastly executing on their vision for more than three years. Their work at the intersection of crypto and AI began long before it became a mainstream narrative," said Christopher Heymann, Founding Partner at 1kx. "We believe AI agents will be instrumental in shaping the future of onchain financial markets, eventually playing many roles ranging from influencer to researcher, trader, and executor. While initial use cases will likely center around native crypto token trading, the influence of AI agents will also extend into emerging sectors such as prediction markets, options protocols, and tokenized equities. With its thoughtful token design and innovative platform, Olas offers an end-to-end solution for users who want to own and deploy their own AI agents."


This fresh capital heralds the latest initiative to cement Olas as the home of crypto-native AI agents: the Olas Accelerator. The new program will reward high-quality developers for building the best agents on Olas, with a total prize pool of up to $1,000,000, plus significant OLAS rewards! Each builder team could receive up to $100,000, plus OLAS, for bringing the best agents to users via Pearl, the “agent app store”.


"AI Agents are a core part of our DeFi mass adoption strategy here at Mode. We are thrilled to be building on the number one AI Agent network, launching Olas Modius with Olas’ core contributor” – James Ross, CEO, Mode.


Olas’ latest achievements highlight the growing appetite for AI agents that users can actually own. By combining groundbreaking technology, strategic partnerships, and a builder-first approach, Olas continues to set the standard for innovation in this dynamic space. The introduction of Pearl as the agent app store, along with the influx of funding, positions Olas to remain the home of AI agents, setting the standard for user-owned AI.


Follow the live statistics and own your own AI agents by trying Pearl here.