In recent years, data is often referred to as the new oil. Research shows that by 2032, the data collection market is set to grow at a 25% CAGR, reaching $109 billion from $63 billion. Coupled with the advent of AI and its primary source of knowledge running on data, AI companies are bound to become the most significant consumers of data. For example, just recently, OpenAI hired 1000 external consultants, including 600 dedicated to data collection and annotation.
Nevertheless, AI companies currently need more diverse and affordable data. To solve this issue, Morningstar Ventures’ portfolio company and incubation project, Ta-da, aims to support AI companies by giving them access to high-quality data at an affordable rate.
This month's review will cover everything from the founding team behind Ta-da to the $TADA tokenomics and show examples of app case studies. The review will end with an analysis of what we like about Ta-da and where we see potential challenges for the project.
What is Ta-da and How Does it Work
Ta-da is the first Talk-to-Earn Web3 app and digital marketplace to connect businesses with individuals to earn tokens via recording voice data. Ta-da evolved from Vivoka, a French-based AI company focusing on voice technologies. Both projects were founded and are run by Forbes France 30 Under 30 entrepreneur William Simonin.
Ta-da fosters AI innovation by offering a competitive marketplace that facilitates businesses in obtaining trustworthy datasets. Beyond catering to the requirements of AI companies, Ta-da also assists individuals in earning tokens by recording and verifying voice data. Utilizing a gamified Web3 app, Ta-da enables its users, "Producers" and "Checkers," to engage in microtasks and receive rewards for validating data.
The Ta-da app has three essential “users”:
- Companies: Companies request a job on the app depending on their needs. Typically, Ta-da has seen AI or Machine Learning (ML) companies request various jobs.
- Producers: Create the data on the app by completing micro-tasks requested by the company. Producers also get paid by Ta-da in their native token when a task is completed and verified.
- Checkers: Validate and verify the data created by the producers. They ensure that everything is correct and not malicious. Ta-da also pays Checkers in its native token when they verify a task.
How the App Works:
- A company submits a “job” on the Ta-da app (for example, it needs data to train its voice assistant).
- Ta-da splits the “job” into micro-tasks, which are sent to individual producers
- The producer completes the micro-tasks by recording their voice, and for security reasons, it is sent to the checkers.
- The checkers ensure the producers have recorded quality data and vote for the validity of the data
- If the data is valid, the producers and the checkers are paid via the native token $TADA, the data is then sent to the original company that requested the “job”.
Case study examples:
Ta-da outlines several case studies that companies could request in the future, for example:
- Handling large video streams
- AI functioning in different regions
- Building an AI for an E-Commerce business
- Reduce the world error rate of a speech recognition AI
The team is currently working on the app's beta version and has already made significant progress in gathering data points and creating tasks. To this date, the team has over 5K beta users and has completed over 2.5M tasks.
Fundraising and Partnerships
As mentioned above, the French-based AI company Vivoka and its team are the predecessors of Ta-da, along with a strong board of advisors, including Hasheur, CEO of Meria, Luc Julia, creator of Apple’s Siri, and our CEO Danilo S. Carlucci. Regarding funding, in 2021, Morningstar Ventures incubated Ta-da, leading its seed round in early 2022. Throughout 2023, MultiversX became the protocol’s underlying chain and ecosystem, leading Ta-da’s private round and Morningstar Ventures.
The capital raised will help the project develop its infrastructure and expand its AI data marketplace and app – powered by MultiversX technologies. Other investors include X Ventures, GBV Capital, Alpha Protocol, Spark Digital Capital, and NXGEN Capital. xLaunchpad
Ta-da is the next project on xLaunchpad, a MultiversX-driven platform and the official token launchpad, which enables projects built on the ecosystem to successfully launch their projects with the support of the community and MultiversX team. Beyond funding, the xLaunchpad aims to provide support, including mentorship, resources, and networking opportunities.
Other Morningstar Ventures portfolio companies such as AshSwap, Hatom, Cantina Royale, Itheum, and Holoride have also launched on the xLaunchpad.
Current MSV.GG Partnership
Morningstar Ventures’ retail arm and invite-only guild, MSV.GG, is also working closely with the Ta-da team. So far, MSV.GG members have tested the app and provided initial user feedback. In the future, the guild plans to keep working with Ta-da and provide recommendations on how the platform can continue to improve. Members will also create content for the Ta-da team, including onboarding guides and tutorials for future users.
Gamification and In-App Token Economy
Ta-da redistributes money from customers to the community by converting fiat payments into stablecoins. The distributed earnings are allocated across three categories: Ta-da's treasury, staking, and the prize pool. Task remuneration gets stored in the general prize pool each time a user validates a task, resulting in a larger pool as more tasks are validated. Every week, the prize pool undergoes a non-linear redistribution to users, with the first users receiving a larger share and the last receiving comparatively less.
In-app purchases and lost deposits contribute to the prize pool. A portion of these funds is burned to foster a deflationary economy, while the remaining amount is redistributed to the treasury and stakers.
Gamification is a big part of Ta-da’s token economy and a user incentive mechanism. For example, when new users join the application, they receive a robot called Tadz. This avatar can be personalized in many ways to make it unique. Users can choose items to associate with their robot. Some items are purely cosmetic, letting users express their style, while others are practical and help users earn more within the application. The robot is also important for the social aspect of the application, as it allows users to view statistics of other players, compare themselves with others, and discover new objects and features. Within the app, users are further incentivized via a league system that encourages healthy competition between users. Additionally, as players complete more tasks, they gain experience points (XPs), which help them level up and gain more skills. The different skills include:
- Endurance: Increases the user's maximum energy level. For example, all users start with a 100-point energy bar. By allocating a skill point to this attribute, the user could have a 120-point energy bar.
- Agility: Allows the user to gain multiple skill points when leveling up.
- Luck: Enhances the user's chance of looting items and gifts when performing tasks.
Read more about Ta-da’s Gamification ➡️: here
Our Analysis:
Strengths:
- AI is a growing space set to grow at a 25% CAGR, reaching $109 billion from $63 billion. Given the competitive landscape, Ta-da’s experience with corporate clients through Vivoka has helped them acquire paying clients before the full product launch. This puts them in a strong position to find the right product-market fit and create an optimal go-to-market strategy. Furthermore, as Ta-da is currently focused on voice but plans to expand to computer visions, text, and image categorization, the number of use cases clients can request is plenty.
- The Gamification and fun elements of the app are strong incentives for producers and checkers to continue using the app and completing micro-tasks. Tokenization and the Web3 element make this AI app unique to other non-Web3 apps and data platforms. The team is transparent about using the already proven Duolingo gamification model in their app, which has been shown to retain users and excite them to move up levels.
- Ta-da has a strong team and experienced advisors as well as investors. Their background in voice AI through Vivioka not only gives them a set of expertise on how the technology and market work but also gives them a leg up in terms of clients in the pipeline.
Challenges:
- Despite Ta-da’s strong mission and use cases, AI is a competitive space, with almost every tech company trying to enter the market. Ta-da must continue to differentiate itself and put Web3 and blockchain technologies at the forefront, as many voice-related AI agents are still focused within the Web2 ecosystem. That said, onboarding new clients within Web2 might also be challenging as they will need to understand the product first and how Ta-da is powered by Web3.
What’s Next for Ta-da
Regarding the product, Ta-da aims to operate across three domains: Voice, Computer Vision, and Text, however, given the growing need for natural language processing data, the team has decided to work on the “Voice” domain first. The team will also be working on its AI Marketplace.
In Q1 of 2024, Ta-da will hold an IDO on xLaunchpad. The team recently posted a thread on X (Twitter) highlighting some key dates for the public sale, these include:
- January 3: EGLD Staking & XMEX, until January 19
- January 10: Research page
- January 18: KYC Phase, until February 2
- February 7-8: Buy TADA lottery tickets
- February 9: Lottery result & Claim winning tickets & xExchange Listing
See the full thread ➡️: here
Learn more about Ta-da:
🌐 Official website: https://ta-da.io/
🐦 Official Twitter: https://twitter.com/Ta_da_io
📜 Whitepaper: https://docs.ta-da.io/introduction/overview
🕹️ Discord channel: https://discord.com/invite/MYFuBj9VS4
