Carv, a data layer platform that lets web3 gaming and AI companies, as well as gamers, control and monetize their data, has raised a $10 million Series A round led by Tribe Capital and IOSG Ventures.
Carv’s new round comes approximately five months after it received a strategic investment led by HashKey Capital. The startup did not disclose its valuation and the total funding it has raised so far. In 2022, Carv was valued at roughly $40 million when it raised a seed round led by Temasek’s VC arm, Vertex Ventures.
Carv’s initial focus is on two key industries, gaming and AI, where it sees the biggest opportunity to help users control their data and monetize it. Users can choose to provide their data to Carv’s corporate customers in a way that preserves their privacy and is compliant with regulations, so that companies can use it for training AI models, market research and more.
“While user data has powered tremendous economic growth, individuals don’t share the value created when their information is leveraged to build billion-dollar businesses,” Victor Yu, co-founder and COO of Carv, told TechCrunch.
Carv offers three solutions: CARV Protocol, a modular data layer with cross-chain connectivity that connects web2 identities to web3 tokens; CARV Play, a cross-platform credentialing system and game distribution platform; and CARV’s AI Agent, CARA, a personalized gaming assistant that integrates with web3 wallets and can recommend games, activities and projects.
“Carv differentiates itself by putting data ownership and monetization rights in the hands of users. Any revenue generated from leveraging users’ data gets shared back with the data creators and themselves,” Yu said. “Additionally, we’ve created a unified user ID standard (ERC-7231) that bridges web2 and web3, enabling seamless data portability versus today’s siloed solutions.”
Carv has been profitable since December 2023, and generates monthly recurring revenue of more than $1 million, Yu said, adding that the company is also seeing significant month-over-month growth.
The company now has 2.5 million registered users and over 350 integrated gaming and AI company partners.
With the new capital, Carv plans to enhance the design of its CARV Portal to ensure it is scalable and can support a broader range of use cases. It will also launch CARV Link to improve on-chain identity and data authentication, and CARV Database to manage various types of user data.
Arweave, Consensys (developer of MetaMask and Linea), Draper Dragon, Fenbushi Capital, LiquidX, MARBLEX, (the web3 arm of Korean gaming company Netmarble), No Limit Holdings and OKX Ventures also participated in the Series A round.
