Story Protocol launches with $54 million round led by a16z to tap IP ownership
Quick Take
- The project aims to “democratize IP creation” with a funding round contributed to by Hashed, Endeavor and Samsung Next.
- Si-hyuk Bang, chairman of South Korea’s HYBE, which represents K-pop boy groups BTS and Seventeen, and Sanghun Kim, former CEO of Korean internet giant Naver, also invested in the company.
Story Protocol, which aims to develop an open-source platform for intellectual property ownership, announced its launch today in tandem with a $54 million funding round led by a16z crypto.
The project said in a statement that it is creating a new IP protocol optimized for the internet era, aiming to "democratize IP creation through a global and extensible IP repository."
The funding round included participation from Hashed, Endeavor, Samsung Next and a number of prominent business figures such as Si-hyuk Bang, chairman of South Korea’s HYBE, which represents K-pop boy groups BTS and Seventeen.
Sanghun Kim, former CEO of Korean internet giant Naver, and Roham Gharegozlou, founder and CEO of Dapper Labs, also participated in the funding round.
The lifecycle of IP development
Story Protocol said that it plans to provide a streamlined framework to manage the entire lifecycle of IP development, enabling features like provenance tracking, frictionless licensing and revenue sharing.
"In a world of total abundance catalyzed by generative AI, blockchain technology presents the perfect solution for transparent provenance tracking and fair attribution," Seung Yoon Lee, co-founder of Story Protocol, said in the statement.
Sriram Krishnan, general partner at a16z crypto, said that web3 has the promise to help solve some of the longest-standing problems in the media and entertainment industries, adding that the project "has the opportunity to revolutionize the future of IP for artists, fans, and developers by empowering creativity at the speed of the internet."
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