MyShell Secures $11M Funding for Blockchain-Based AI Girlfriend Platform

MyShell, a Tokyo-based decentralized AI platform known for enabling the creation of "AI girlfriends" and productivity applications using blockchain technology, has successfully raised $11 million in pre-Series A funding. Led by Dragonfly, the investment round also saw participation from prominent investors like Delphi Ventures, Bankless Ventures, Maven11 Capital, Nascent, Nomad Capital, OKX Ventures, and notable individuals such as Balaji Srinivasan, Illia Polosukhin from NEAR, and Casey K. Caruso from Paradigm. MyShell's funding now totals $16.6 million, which will primarily be allocated towards advancing its open-source foundational model and supporting its community of over 1 million registered users and 50,000 creators. The platform distinguishes itself through its decentralized approach, utilizing blockchain tools for model training and creator royalties, aiming to provide a space for creators and AI model researchers to monetize their work effectively. The company's primary products include "Workshop" for building AI agents through prompts and "Makerspace," a no-code app development tool, with a focus on AI companions. While MyShell is well-known for its AI girlfriend creations, CEO Ethan Sun emphasizes the platform's broader goal of empowering creators to develop a diverse range of AI applications and productivity tools. Additionally, MyShell's technology has served as the foundation for projects like MeloTTS, a text-to-speech solution, and Allice, an open-source foundation model for AI app development workflows.