Andreessen Horowitz Leads $33M Round for GPU Compute Marketplace Ornn

The race to commoditize AI infrastructure has a new major player. Ornn, a New York startup, has raised $33 million in a seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz's crypto fund.

The company is building a marketplace to trade GPU compute capacity. Its core product, the Ornn Compute Price Index, tracks live spot prices for NVIDIA H100 and H200 chips, which are critical for modern AI.

The index has been live on Bloomberg Terminal since April. In May, Ornn partnered with the Intercontinental Exchange, the parent of the NYSE, to launch USD cash-settled GPU compute futures contracts based on its index.

This creates a new derivatives market for AI infrastructure. Companies can hedge against price volatility, while traders can speculate on compute demand.

The involvement of a16z's crypto fund is notable. Ornn has no token or blockchain component, signaling the fund sees opportunity in pure financial infrastructure for AI.

Founders Kush Bavaria and Alex Wissner-Gross aim to bring transparency to the opaque GPU compute market, much like futures transformed oil trading decades ago.