Total financing exceeds US$140 million, intellectual property blockchain Story Protocol receives another US$80 million investment

PIP Labs, the initial core contributor of Story Protocol, announced the completion of a $80 million Series B financing, led by a16z crypto and strategically invested by Polychain. Other well-known investors include Scott Trowbridge, senior vice president and board member of Stability AI, Adrian Cheng, founder of K11, and digital art collector Cozomo de Medici. This round of financing brings PIP Labs total financing to $140 million.

Intellectual property (IP) is one of the worlds largest asset classes, including not only Hollywood movies and Billboard charts, but also training data, AI models, memes, UGC videos, game assets, character traits, etc. With the rise of AI, IP is more valuable as the basic input for large-scale model training. In short, without IP, the development of AI may reach a bottleneck.

However, there are both positive and negative effects of AI on IP. On the one hand, AI enables individuals around the world to independently produce studio-level IP. On the other hand, IP theft is common. Large technology companies and language models take all the traffic without the consent of the creators and profit from it. IP is at a crossroads: to thrive or to be crushed. Independent creators from food bloggers to UGC video creators, musicians, and comic artists are in urgent need of an effective solution to protect and grow their IP, otherwise they will face a similar fate to local news (local news was hit hard by Googles suspension of classified information flow ads).

Story Protocol is the worlds first intellectual property blockchain, designed to tokenize trillions of intellectual property assets and create Layer 1 of programmable IP in the AI era. Creators can not only claim sovereignty over their IP and define usage parameters through Story Protocol, but also use Story Protocol to build a global network to transform fans into evangelists through secondary creation, sales, and distribution of their IP.

SY Lee, Co-founder and CEO of PIP Labs, said: Big tech companies are stealing intellectual property without consent and grabbing all the profits. First, they use your IP for their AI models without providing any compensation. Then, they hijack your future economic interests by siphoning away your potential traffic. At least in the past, Google would still divert some traffic to your content, but this still led to the closure of many local newspapers. The current development of AI has completely killed our motivation to create original IP. At the same time, if no one is willing to create original content for AI training, this will have a negative impact on AI. In the long run, such an approach is tantamount to suicide. In contrast, Story Protocol will ensure the sustainable development of Internet creativity and bring win-win to creators and AI without any intermediaries. Creators can programmatically declare their sovereignty and license to IP by computing readable and writable metadata on a trusted neutral blockchain. AI models can now conveniently license creators data and easily compensate them without lawyers and legal documents. Story Protocol will become a win-win solution for IP and AI.

“The economic contract of the internet — content creators provide supply, content distributors provide demand — is being disrupted by the ubiquity of AI,” said Chris Dixon, founder and managing partner of a16z crypto. “PIP Labs is building the infrastructure needed for a new economic contract for the AI era. Blockchain is well suited for large-scale economic coordination, and Story Protocol’s platform can ensure that creators who provide IP to AI systems are compensated. SY is a proven innovator, and we are excited to support his vision by leading the company’s third round of funding.”

Olaf Carlson-Wee, Founder and CEO of Polychain Capital, said: Story Protocol is to content and IP what Bitcoin is to currency and finance. The first phase of Web3 was triggered by the 2008 financial crisis, which brought a monetary revolution represented by networks such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. Now, advances in AI are catalyzing the second phase of Web3, which will completely change IP. Artists works and everyones data are being used to train large centralized models without consent, and the monopoly power of large technology companies is growing exponentially. The world needs a decentralized IP system that returns ownership of data and IP to the people, just as Bitcoin brought sovereignty to currency and finance after the global financial crisis.

Creators and applications can put their IP on-chain through Story Protocol, turning static IP into programmable IP by declaring a set of on-chain permissions that any program can read and write. Story Protocol enables permissionless authorization and automatic royalty payments through a proof-of-creativity protocol, making it easy to share IP rights and opening up new sources of income for creators.

Jason Zhao, Co-founder and Chief Product Officer of PIP Labs, said: “Think of Story Protocol as an IP Lego. On Story Protocol’s blockchain, IP becomes IP Lego – a programmable on-chain asset that can be reassembled and created in thousands of applications. IP Lego and generative AI are complementary yin and yang. Together, they unlock new revenue streams for creators. Give fans fun IP Lego and the magic of generative AI, and they can create exciting spin-offs, hardcore game sequels, remixed music, and fashion designs.”

Currently, the number of IPs on the Story Protocol chain has exceeded 20 million, and more than 200 teams are building applications such as IPFi, AI, and consumer markets. Ablo built by Space Runners is an AI fashion design tool supported by Accel, Polychain, and Pantera. Through Story Protocol, Ablo enables anyone in the world to customize and re-create the latest fashion items using generative AI. Ablo has already cooperated with multiple brands, including French luxury brands Balmain, Smiley, etc.

AI storytelling platform Sekai uses Story Protocol to help storytellers, artists, and fans co-create content, enhancing the depth and engagement of narratives. Top comics studios can now turn their IP into IP LEGO, making it possible for the next licensed derivative work to be created by fans for the first time while capturing its revenue and traffic.

In July 2024, Story Academy was launched as a support program for programmable IP builders, providing funding, education, and community support for applications published on Story. Currently, Story Academy has received more than 100 applications from outstanding teams around the world.

The PIP Seoul theme event will be held on September 2 during Frieze Seoul and Korea Blockchain Week. Guests include Refik Anadol, a famous generative AI artist, Emad Mostaque, founder of the most popular open source AI model Stable Diffusion, and Kyogu Lee, CEO of Supertone, a voice AI subsidiary of HYBE, South Koreas largest entertainment company.

About Story Protocol

Story Protocol is the global intellectual property blockchain, unleashing global creativity and liquidity by transforming IP into a network across media and platforms. Visit storyprotocol.xyz to learn more.

About PIP Labs

PIP Labs is an initial core contributor to the Story Protocol network and has received support from investors such as a16z crypto, Endeavor, and Polychain. PIP Labs was co-founded by a serial entrepreneur with a $440 million exit record and Deepminds youngest product manager. The founding team has extensive experience in consumer technology, generative AI, and Web3 infrastructure.

Intellectual property blockchain Story completes $80 million Series B financing, led by a16z crypto, with participation from Polychain and others

On August 21, PIP Labs, the core contributor team of Story, an intellectual property blockchain, announced the completion of a $80 million Series B financing led by a16z crypto. Polychain participated as a strategic investor. Other investors include Scott Trowbridge, senior vice president and board member of Stability AI, Adrian Cheng, founder of K11, and digital art collector Cozomo deMedici. The new round of financing brings PIP Labs total financing to $140 million.

“PIP Labs is building the infrastructure needed for a new economic contract in the AI era, and Story Protocol ensures that creators who provide IP to AI systems are compensated,” said Chris Dixon, founder and managing partner of a16z crypto. “SY is a proven innovator, and we are excited to support his vision by leading the company’s third round of funding.”

Story Protocol is the worlds first intellectual property blockchain, which aims to tokenize trillion-level intellectual property assets and unlock the infinite creativity of programmable IP + AI. Currently, the number of IPs on the Story Protocol chain has exceeded 20 million, and more than 200 teams are building applications such as IPFi, AI and consumer markets.