In May 2025, Pi Network unveiled Pi Network Ventures, a $100 million fund denominated in a mix of PI tokens and US dollars, aimed at backing startups in AI, fintech, gaming, e-commerce, and robotics. The pitch was bold: portfolio companies would gain access to millions of KYC-verified users. Thirteen months later, the public record shows just one disclosed investment—OpenMind, a robotics software startup announced in late October 2025. The check size was never stated.
There is no portfolio page, no deployment report, no breakdown of how much of the $100 million has been used, in what proportion of tokens to dollars, or at what token valuation. PI token has plunged from around $0.60-$0.70 at announcement to roughly $0.12 today, wiping over 80% of the dollar value of any PI-denominated portion. The team has not disclosed the split, custody, or mark-to-market practice, making the fund's real firepower unknown.
The distribution pitch vs. reality
The fund's key selling point was access to Pi's massive user base. However, ecosystem data shows that while Pi claims 60 million accounts, over 17 million KYC-verified, and nearly 16 million migrated to mainnet, fewer than 100 mainnet-ready applications exist. More than 51,000 creators used Pi App Studio to build apps, yet conversion to active, revenue-generating dApps is tiny. Users who came to tap a mining button have not become customers for third-party products. Any startup evaluating Pi Ventures' term sheet can see this funnel, making the distribution asset far less valuable than advertised.
The OpenMind bet: credible but not a fix
OpenMind is a legitimate startup founded by Stanford professor Jan Liphardt, building an Android-like OS for robots and a protocol for machine collaboration. It raised a $20 million round from Pantera Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Ribbit Capital, Topology, and Pebblebed in August 2025; Pi's undisclosed investment followed. The teams ran a proof-of-concept using Pi's node network for distributed AI processing. The longer-term vision involves Pi's nodes providing decentralized compute for AI workloads, with PI tokens used for machine-to-machine payments. While this positions Pi in an emerging narrative, it does not solve near-term token demand or unlock pressure. Compensating node operators for compute could create external revenue, but distributed consumer hardware is inefficient for most AI workloads, and no published benchmarks or earnings data exist.
After 13 months and one vague deal, the transparency deficit remains the biggest issue. No investment criteria, no governance structure, no regular deployment reports. The public cannot distinguish between deliberate patience, unannounced deals, or a fund whose capital was largely notional. Pi Network Ventures' problem is not its existence but the community's inability to see whether it is functioning.