Surf Raises $15M to Scale the First AI Model Purpose-Built for Digital Assets
San Francisco, California, December 10th, 2025, Chainwire
- Pantera Capital leads the fundraising, joined by Coinbase Ventures and Digital Currency Group (DCG)
- Surf raises $15 million to develop Surf 2.0, to serve the high demand of crypto insights from crypto traders, researchers and investors. Also to launch Surf Enterprise with SOC 2 compliance and data privacy
- Surf 1.0 already tops CAIA benchmark, outsmarting competitors by 4x https://asksurf.ai/home#benchmark
Surf, the AI intelligence platform for digital assets, today announced it has raised $15 million led by Pantera Capital, with participation from Coinbase Ventures and DCG. The funding will support the development of Surf 2.0, a more advanced version of the company’s domain-specific AI, and expand Surf’s enterprise offering.
Surf combines proprietary models built for digital asset analysis with industry-leading data, giving it a level of accuracy that general-purpose systems lack. Its first model, Surf 1.0, demonstrated this advantage: on CAIA, a benchmark that evaluates whether an AI model can perform the tasks of a junior human analyst, Surf outperformed competitors by up to 4x. The result highlights the limitations of general-purpose models and why investors are turning to specialized systems for consistent and reliable analysis. As interest in digital assets accelerates, both institutional teams and individual investors are looking for intelligence that can interpret market data reliably, without the inaccuracies of broad LLMs.
Surf’s platform uses a multi-agent architecture that analyzes social sentiment, onchain activity, and token and market behavior with advanced logic. Insights are delivered through a simple chat interface, giving users a single point of access without relying on manual, error-prone research.
Since launching in July, Surf has seen strong early adoption and consistent growth:
- Millions in Annual Recurring Revenue
- Generated over 1M research reports
- 50% growth month over month
- 80% of top exchanges and research firms use Surf
The funding will accelerate the development of Surf 2.0 and the company’s enterprise offerings. Surf 2.0 will introduce a more advanced model, expanded proprietary datasets, and new agents capable of executing multi-step workflows typically handled by experienced analysts. The enterprise offering will add enhanced security controls, dedicated infrastructure, and SOC 2 compliance to meet institutional requirements.
Teams at top firms already use Surf daily. A research associate at a global venture fund said, “Surf is an exceptional product. I use it daily, and increasingly find myself spending more time on Surf than on Perplexity.”
“When people make financial decisions, they want information they can trust. Generic AI tools aren’t built for that.” said Ryan Li, Co-founder and CEO of Surf. “We’re building Surf to give people something they can rely on, especially in a market that moves as quickly as crypto.”
Added Nihal Maunder, Partner at Pantera Capital “Digital asset research has always required a level of context and detail that general LLMs don’t handle well. Surf is one of the first teams to take that seriously, and the traction they’ve shown tells us the market has been waiting for a tool like this.”
About Surf
Surf is an AI intelligence platform for digital assets that delivers accurate, trusted insights through a simple chat interface. Using proprietary data and domain-specific models, Surf helps institutions and individual investors analyze projects, understand market conditions, and make informed decisions with confidence.
For individual users: Additional information is available at asksurf.ai/home
For enterprises: Additional information is available at https://asksurf.ai/enterprise