Donut Labs Secures $7 Million for AI-Powered Crypto Browser

Donut Labs, a New York-based company, has secured $7 million in pre-seed funding to develop what it claims to be the world’s first “agentic” crypto browser. This innovative tool is designed to facilitate user interactions with blockchain-based applications through artificial intelligence, marking a significant advancement in the cryptocurrency and Web3 spaces.

The funding round was led by prominent investors including Sequoia, Bitkraft, and HackVC, with additional support from angel investors such as Solana and other ecosystem leaders like Matrix Partners, Sky9 Ventures, Makers Fund, and SonicSVM. The $7 million will be used to develop Donut, an AI-powered crypto browser that includes a native cryptocurrency wallet, decentralized exchange integration, decentralized network access, and onchain execution capabilities.

Unlike traditional web browsers, Donut’s AI algorithms are designed to understand page context and user intent, enabling autonomous execution of blockchain-based operations. This feature aims to make digital asset transactions safer and more efficient. Donut founder and CEO Chris Zhu emphasized the transformative potential of this technology, stating, “The traditional browser hasn’t changed for more than 30 years. We’re re-architecting everything. We’re reconstructing the front end of the internet to be hyper-financialized for AI agents.”

Donut’s users will have access to a range of decentralized tools and crypto services through a single agentic interface. This integration could simplify the process of interacting with decentralized applications (dApps) and blockchain networks, making the experience more seamless and secure. Zhu highlighted the security features of Donut, noting that “Architecturally isolated signing environments and AI-powered risk screening secure every transaction while optimizing execution for speed and cost. AI translates opaque calldata into plain English and assigns safety grades.”

The AI agents within Donut can perform various tasks such as trading or swapping tokens, placing bets, or earning passive yield on digital assets. This functionality is expected to attract early adopters, including crypto traders, builders, and decentralized finance (DeFi) users. However, the potential impact of agentic browsers extends beyond the crypto community. Within the next decade, these browsers could become mainstream, integrating with Ethereum layer-2 (L2) networks to reduce settlement costs and enhancing mainstream browsers with agentic capabilities.

Zhu envisions a future where onchain and offchain environments are completely merged, making agentic browsers the default entry point for internet users. This shift could be as transformative as the transition from feature phones to smartphones. In the long term, Donut aims to support a wide range of activities, including payments, gaming, content creation, and social interaction, all within a single crypto-native browser. The company also plans to leverage advancements in decentralized identity and confidential computing to turn the browser into a personal “crypto CFO” for retail users.

This development underscores the growing interest and investment in Web3 technologies, which operate on decentralized principles and aim to create a more secure, transparent, and user-centric internet experience. The launch of Donut’s 'agentic' crypto browser is expected to have far-reaching implications across various sectors, driving further innovation and adoption in the decentralized technology landscape.