Olas announced Tuesday it has raised $13.8 million to launch Pearl, a blockchain-based decentralized artificial intelligence agent marketplace.

The round was led by 1kx with participation from Tioga Capital, Sigil Fund, Zee Prime Capital and Spaceship DAO.

Olas, also Autonolas DAO, launched a platform for autonomous AI agents in 2021 within the blockchain and crypto industry. AI agents are a type of software that can perform tasks and makes decisions with little or no human intervention. They can collect data, analyze it and use it to take action independently based on predetermined goals.

The vision of Olas by launching Pearl is to provide users the opportunity to “co-own” the very AI agents that they build and launch. Unlike traditional AI services, which are centralized to one service, Olas uses blockchain technology, which spreads transactions and processing across decentralized nodes.

Decentralized agents are split up into multiple agent instances, each run by different operators. The company says that due to the open-source code and consensus mechanism of blockchain technology ensures high transparency and robustness.

Olas also provides sovereign agents, which are lightweight agents that anyone can run locally or in the cloud. According to the company, they’re simple and have a low operating cost for small-scale operations that don’t need extensive coordination.

“Pearl’s agent app store represents a significant step forward in democratizing access to AI agents,” said David Minarsch, Olas project member and chief executive of Olas core contributor Valory AG. “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.”

Pearl works as a desktop app that allows users to own and operate their own autonomous Olas AI agents that allows them to control them on the blockchain for different use cases. This includes autonomous social media accounts or trading cryptocurrency.

Olas revealed that its agents are currently doing more than 700,000 transactions per month and growing at a rate of 30% month over month. Its agents have powered over 3.5 million transactions across nine blockchains, with 2 million of those transactions happening between Olas agents themselves.

Alongside the announcement, Olas said it is launching an accelerator program offering up to $1 million in grants. Developers may submit agent proposals for integration into Pearl and a user adoption plan. Selected teams may receive awards up to $100,000 for having their agents added to the store, having their agent chosen as most valued, achieving certain milestones and other metrics.

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