• Reppo Labs secures $2.2 million to develop a permissionless data exchange, enabling AI agents to negotiate access to niche datasets without intermediaries.
  • The funding, backed by Protocol Labs and other investors, supports Reppo’s mission to unlock business-owned data for AI applications in Web3.

Reppo Labs, a Crypto & AI company spun out of Protocol Labs Venture Studio in March 2024, has raised $2.2 million in funding to develop infrastructure for permissionless collaboration on niche datasets.

The platform aims to connect data owners and warehouses with AI developers and agents, facilitating direct negotiations for data access without intermediaries.

This approach seeks to unlock price discovery and demand for underutilized data. The initiative is powered by an intent-centric Data Exchange, utilizing Anoma and secured by Gateway Protocol.

Reppo’s model is based on programmable intellectual property (IP) co-ownership, incentivizing data owners to receive compensation from downstream revenue generated by derived IP and its usage.

The company argues that traditional data-sharing mechanisms are inefficient and that Web3-based solutions have yet to scale effectively.

Raghav (RG) Rmadya, CEO and Founder of Reppo Labs, said:

“Anyone claiming to build a blockchain specifically for AI is most likely a scam. It’s nothing more than a narrative play. Most blockchains today can already support agentic workflows and AI applications. The more likely future is that each agent or application will have its own chain. In such a world, models, agents, and applications will need permissionless ways to self-source their fuel, i.e., data, to grow and stay relevant.”

The company points to industry trends indicating a growing demand for novel data sources. The acquisition of Carbon by Perplexity and discussions at NeurIPS highlight concerns about the drying up of current data pipelines.

Reppo sees an opportunity in unlocking business-owned data, which remains largely untapped. The company is working on initiatives such as AI auditors for solar farms on the Glow Network, which leverage off-chain data to automate network audits.

Brad Holden, Partner at Protocol VC, emphasized the importance of Reppo’s mission, stating that the team’s work could help address bottlenecks in areas such as insurance underwriting and node auditing.

“Few teams take such a systems approach to solving wicked problems, and it was a no-brainer for us to partner with Reppo,” he said.

The $2.2 million funding round included investments from Protocol Labs, CV VC, CMS Holdings, and angel investors such as Charles Songhurst, Lincoln from MH Ventures, and Dieter Fishbein from Anoma. A significant portion of the funding was raised on Echo.xyz, with the first allocation selling out in under 10 minutes.

Edited by Harshajit Sarmah