a16z crypto leads $33 million seed round for Yupp as it exits stealth to build crypto-incentivized AI model evaluation platform

AI startup Yupp has emerged from stealth, with a16z crypto announcing it led a $33 million seed funding round for the free platform that lets users compare answers from top AI models, including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, DeepSeek, and Llama, using onchain incentives. a16z crypto is the cryptocurrency-focused division of venture firm Andreessen Horowitz.Over 45 angels and other investors, including Google Chief Scientist Jeff Dean, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, Pinterest co-founder Evan Sharp, Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas, Cred CEO Kunal Shah, Coinbase CLO Paul Grewal, and Coinbase Ventures also participated in the round, Yupp co-founder and CEO Pankaj Gupta confirmed in a separate post.Gupta co-founded Yupp with AI lead Gilad Mishne in June 2024, building a team of veterans from Coinbase, Google, X, and top research labs. The seed round was closed last year, with the platform in stealth mode for the past six months, he said.What is Yupp?Yupp aims to address the limitations of closed feedback systems by allowing people to compare models, provide feedback, and help improve them, all while earning reward credits through crypto rails, including stablecoins on Base and Solana, as well as fiat currencies. The platform integrates with payment providers such as Stripe, PayPal, and Coinbase.Instead of relying on a single AI, Yupp provides users with multiple answers to the same question, allowing them to judge for themselves what is most helpful. Yupp provides free access to the AI models by collecting user feedback on responses — what worked and what didn't — which helps improve model evaluations and training. In return for this valuable data, users earn credits that fund continued use. "We believe crypto can bring transparency and ownership to this murky area of AI," a16z crypto's Chris Dixon and Elizabeth Harkavy wrote in a blog post on Friday, explaining the rationale behind its investment. "Blockchains can make it easier for people to receive rewards for their contributions. They can also provide AI builders with assurances about the quality and provenance of the feedback data and evaluations they're incorporating into their models. So users get incentives, builders get trustworthy data, and everyone can audit either side of the open market."The platform uses the aggregated feedback to create the "Yupp VIBE Score" — a public leaderboard that helps evaluate which models perform best across different tasks, the firm said. This feedback loop powers the platform, letting Yupp offer even premium models at no cost, emphasizing that all user prompts in chats are always private unless explicitly made public."AI needs strong, reliable evaluation based on large-scale human input. Crypto is the trust machine that can help deliver it. By enabling people worldwide to contribute model-improving feedback, Yupp aims to become the default evaluation layer for the future of AI," a16zcrypto added.Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures.© 2025 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.