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Story Protocol has raised $54 million in funding to create the infrastructure for a brand new period of creativity and mental property possession.
The corporate blends IP possession and Web3 to assist its imaginative and prescient for democratizing IP creation and creating a worldwide and extensible IP repository.
A16z, the large enterprise capital firm created by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, led the spherical. Story Protocol makes use of Web3 to hint who created what, amongst different issues.
The platform presents a streamlined framework designed to handle the complete lifecycle of IP growth. It introduces options equivalent to provenance monitoring, frictionless licensing, and income sharing. This has confirmed tough for Web3 marketplaces equivalent to OpenSea.
Story Protocol additionally caters to creators throughout varied media codecs, together with prose, pictures, gaming, and audio. Made for creators throughout all media – prose, pictures, gaming, audio and extra – purposes constructed on Story Protocol give writers and artists the power to trace their work’s provenance, permitting anybody to contribute and remix whereas capturing the worth of their contributions.
“In a world of whole abundance catalyzed by generative AI, blockchain know-how presents the right resolution for clear provenance monitoring and truthful attribution,” says SY (Seung Yoon) Lee, cofounder of Story Protocol, in an announcement. “Story Protocol will usher in a brand new period of entrepreneurial creators and supply current IP holders a wholly new method to interact audiences and advance their IP.”
Story Protocol goals to foster a various ecosystem of third-party builders providing companies equivalent to crowdfunding, capital formation, IP discovery, licensing modules, authentication for AI content material, and neighborhood development. Its open and modular structure permits seamless integration with any software, eradicating platform dangers for ecosystem builders.
“Web3 has the promise to assist clear up among the longest-standing issues within the media and leisure industries,” stated Sriram Krishnan, Normal Associate at A16z crypto, in an announcement. “We consider that Story Protocol has the chance to revolutionize the way forward for IP for artists, followers, and builders by empowering creativity on the pace of the web.”
Inspiration
Story Protocol’s founding workforce has expertise constructing profitable storytelling and shopper purposes for Internet 2 (particularly, Radish and Episode).
The founding workforce behind Story Protocol combines the experience of serial entrepreneurs and seasoned operators from various backgrounds in leisure, web3, and synthetic intelligence. With their collective expertise, the workforce is well-positioned to drive the platform’s development and revolutionize the way in which mental property is created and shared.
Requested concerning the inspiration, Story Protocol stated, “Regardless of their successes, Radish was acquired by Kakao Leisure for over $440mm and Episode surpassing 200mm downloads, the cofounders deeply felt the normal mannequin of bootstrapping IPs relied too closely on advertising and marketing and lacked instruments to foster deeper engagement with their audiences.”
And the corporate stated the founding workforce sought to construct an open-source resolution to allow IP house owners to foster a deeply engaged neighborhood of followers and creatives, treating them as co-contributors slightly than mere customers. Blockchain permits it to assign possession on the web scale by offering clear provenance and attribution. Story Protocol leverages blockchain know-how to show IPs into sturdy networks of followers and creatives, giving creators throughout prose, music, gaming, and extra the appropriate instruments for sustainable and resilient development.
Different buyers embrace Hashed, Endeavor, Samsung Subsequent, dao5, Insignia Enterprise Companions, David Bonderman (chairman of TPG Capital), Si-hyuk Bang (chairman of HYBE/BTS), Paris Hilton’s 11:11 Media, CH Kim (CEO of Krafton/PUBG), Kyung In Jung (CEO of Black Label), Wattpad Co-founder Allen and Eva Lau’s Two Small Fish Ventures, Alliance DAO, Foresight Ventures, Mirana Ventures, Balaji Srinivasan, Nicolas Berggruen, Charlie Songhurst, David Lee (SLVC), Sanghun Kim (former CEO of Naver), Chang Kim (founding father of Tapas) and Roham Gharegozlou (founder & CEO of Dapper Labs), amongst others.
David Goyer’s recommendation
Along with securing funding, Story Protocol stated it has recruited filmmaker David S. Goyer as an advisor. Goyer, celebrated for his work on notable movie trilogies equivalent to Blade and The Darkish Knight, in addition to TV collection like Basis, brings intensive expertise in storytelling throughout varied mediums, together with gaming and digital actuality.
“I envision a future the place creators will wield higher management over their IPs, prolong their affect on a worldwide scale, and domesticate direct connections with their neighborhood,” stated Goyer, in an announcement. “Story Protocol marks a brand new period for the leisure trade and the beginning of a brand new possession mannequin for creators and followers.”
Requested about Goyer’s position, the corporate stated, “We consider creators ought to have a stake within the IPs they helped construct and get some upside publicity within the success of a franchise. With our protocol, creators can kickstart their ambitions with out the necessity for middleman studios or distribution platforms by bootstrapping a neighborhood of followers who’re rewarded for his or her contributions to the IP, whereas creators preserve their possession and skill to see by means of their inventive imaginative and prescient. The assist of filmmaker David Goyer as an advisor makes us assured we will positively change the leisure trade to profit writers, actors and creators at each stage.”
Standing out
The corporate has greater than 20 staff. To make clear how the corporate hopes to face out, Story Protocol stated, “A superb psychological mannequin for understanding what we’re constructing is Git for IPs with possession and incentives. The web is a co-creation and remixing machine, and this development goes to be supercharged by generative AI, however there is no such thing as a IP infrastructure (each authorized and technical) to assist such co-creation and remixing and reward all of the contributors on this networked creation course of.”
Story Protocol additionally stated it’s designed as a base layer for IP purposes, so its main purpose is to draw builders to construct superb companies and instruments that may empower creators and artists. The mission goals to draw a wealthy ecosystem of third-party builders offering companies encompassing crowdfunding, capital formation, IP discovery, licensing modules, authentication for AI content material, and neighborhood development.
The open and decentralized nature of the protocol provides the corporate a significant benefit as a result of it removes the platform danger for ecosystem builders, Story Protocol stated. Nobody desires to spend tons of effort and assets with the danger of getting shut off from the identical platform they helped develop. With that stated, the creators, artists, and IP house owners are the last word beneficiaries of this ecosystem.
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