Secured $20 million in funding, OpenMind builds a decentralized "Android" system for robots

Author: momo, ChainCatcher

Recently, the decentralized operating system for intelligent machines, OpenMind, announced a $20 million funding round, with a luxurious lineup of investors including Pantera Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Sequoia China, and DCG.

It is reported that OpenMind was established not long ago, aiming to build an operating system for robots similar to "Android," enabling robots to think, learn, and collaborate through an intelligent, secure, and governable AI architecture.

According to tracking data from the Web3 asset data platform RootData X, OpenMind is also one of the projects that gained the most new followers on X (Twitter) recently (from July 29 to August 5).

What are the core products of OpenMind?

The OpenMind team believes that robots should not just move simply, but should understand, adapt, and work collaboratively. Their founding intention is to unlock the large-scale autonomous capabilities of machines through an open system, shared intelligence, and decentralized coordination.

Currently, OpenMind has two main core products:

l OM1: An open-source robot operating system (Robot OS) suitable for humanoid or quadruped robots, providing intelligent support for the real world, enabling robots to perceive, move, and think.

l FABRIC: A decentralized network that provides machines with trusted location, identity, and collaboration capabilities, akin to GPS, VPN, and handshake protocols for machines. As a peer-to-peer network for machines, FABRIC supports trusted identities, multi-agent collaboration, and real-time decision-making.

FABRIC has currently opened a waitlist, and according to OpenMind, the waiting list has exceeded 150,000 registrations within 3 days.

Overall, OpenMind is not a traditional robot operating system but a decentralized infrastructure for intelligent machines to share cognition and decision-making, similar to how Linux transformed software, reshaping the ways robots learn, collaborate, and evolve.

OpenMind is committed to transforming intelligent machines from isolated individuals into a collaborative network, continuously enhancing the intelligence of factory, logistics, and home service robots. Through blockchain-driven decentralized collective intelligence, OpenMind improves machine collaboration efficiency and productivity.

What is the background of the founding team?

OpenMind was founded by Jan Liphardt, a professor of bioengineering at Stanford, with team members including engineers from Microsoft and investors from OKX Ventures.

Jan has been deeply involved in the fields of data, machines, and decision-making for decades. His research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Cancer Institute (NCI), and the Department of Energy, and he has received honors such as the Sloan Research Fellowship and the Mohr Davidow Ventures Innovator Award.

Another co-founder of OpenMind, Ali Hindy, also graduated from Stanford University and previously worked as a software engineer at Microsoft, specializing in machine learning and quantum computing project experience.

OpenMind's COO, Paige Xu, was previously a senior investment manager at OKX and a McKinsey analyst.

In addition, OpenMind collaborates with well-known technology institutions such as the Oxford Robotics Institute and Databricks, as well as robot manufacturers like Unitree and kscale, combining experience in robot research and Web3 practices.