A16z crypto leads $33 million bet on compute marketplace Ornn

Compute marketplace Ornn has raised $33 million in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto-focused fund, a16z crypto. The round also drew participation from Galaxy Ventures, Nordstar, and SV Angel, alongside existing investors Vine Ventures, Crucible Capital, Link Ventures, and Box Group, founders Kush Bavaria and Wayne Nelms said in a post on X.

Founded in 2025 by MIT graduates, Ornn is building a marketplace for computing power. The company first developed an index that tracks the cost of graphics processing units (GPUs), a key compute resource for artificial intelligence (AI) workloads. The startup is trying to bring more transparency to a market where companies often struggle to access computing capacity at predictable prices.

“Right now, companies that need compute are shut out, overpaying, or locked into opaque contracts they cannot benchmark or exit. Operators are forced to underwrite tenants one at a time, even as usage shifts across clusters, regions, and hardware types,” the founders said.


A16z crypto said in a blog post that compute pricing is currently negotiated individually (which varies deal by deal) between buyers and sellers, making it difficult for operators to accurately forecast revenue or manage risk when investing in new capacity.

“All mature commodity markets work the same way. They first need reliable pricing data. Price discovery then enables risk transfer. And risk transfer enables efficient capacity allocation. This is what markets are for, and it is what Ornn is building,” the founders added.

The company received a boost last month when Intercontinental Exchange Inc., the owner of the New York Stock Exchange, said it plans to use Ornn’s index for futures contracts, according to a Bloomberg report. The proposal remains subject to regulatory approval.

Ornn said it will use the fresh capital to hire talent and expand the business. Its platform aims to let data centres, neocloud providers, and other participants buy and sell compute capacity in a way similar to how commodities such as oil are traded.