Antseed has raised $2.4 million in a token round led by Spark Capital as it launches a peer-to-peer marketplace designed to bring a decentralized market model to AI inference.
The round for the nonprofit Antseed Foundation also included participation from Collider, DCG, North Island Ventures, Reciprocal Ventures, Relay Capital and Venice.ai. Spark Capital was an early investor in Anthropic.
The launch comes as the cost of running AI models is becoming an increasingly important consideration for developers and businesses. Rather than relying exclusively on centralized AI providers or aggregators, Antseed allows developers to route inference requests across a network of independent providers that compete on price, performance, reputation, model capability and privacy.
Providers can contribute their own hardware or existing compute capacity and determine their own pricing. Developers, meanwhile, connect to the network through a self-hosted local router without needing a central Antseed account or platform-issued API key.
According to Antseed, leading AI models are currently available through its marketplace at prices as much as 97% below their official APIs.
Bringing the Peer-to-Peer Model to AI Compute
Antseed’s model applies a familiar Web3 concept to the rapidly growing AI infrastructure market: replacing a centralized intermediary with an open marketplace in which providers compete directly for demand.
The idea could become increasingly relevant as AI agents and applications generate greater volumes of model calls, making inference a significant recurring operating cost.
“What BitTorrent did for files, Antseed is doing for AI inference, with no central server and no company deciding who gets access or what it costs,” said Amos Meiri, co-founder of Antseed. “As agents make more model calls and inference becomes a material operating cost, developers need a simple way to route each request based on price, performance, capability and privacy.”
Antseed also uses its native ANTS token to incentivize activity within the marketplace. Eligible network usage can earn rewards, while participants can stake behind AI providers. The system is designed to encourage both buyers and providers to bring additional activity and liquidity to the network.
A Growing Market for AI Inference
Antseed is entering the market at a time when AI infrastructure spending is accelerating. Gartner projects worldwide spending on AI cloud infrastructure will increase 96% to $42 billion in 2026, while Stripe recently agreed to acquire centralized AI model aggregator OpenRouter for more than $7 billion.
Antseed is already seeing activity on its network. As of September 2026, independent on-chain analytics cited by the company showed nearly 150 billion tokens processed across 202 active sellers, with more than $285,000 settled on Base.
As demand for AI inference grows, Antseed is betting that the same open-market principles that helped shape crypto infrastructure can create a more competitive alternative to centralized AI compute platforms.
Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
