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08/20/2024

PIP Labs Raises $80M for Story Protocol at $2.25B Valuation

PIP Labs, a Palo Alto-based startup, has announced the close of an $80 million Series B round co-led by a16z Crypto and Polychain Capital to support the development of Story Protocol, a Layer 1 blockchain purpose-built for intellectual property (IP) management. The round also included participation from Hashed, Foresight Ventures, Samsung Next, Mirana Ventures, SparkLabs Global, and angel investors. In total, PIP Labs has raised

PIP Labs Raises $80M for Story Protocol at $2.25B Valuation

PIP Labs, a Palo Alto-based startup, has announced the close of an $80 million Series B round co-led by a16z Crypto and Polychain Capital to support the development of Story Protocol, a Layer 1 blockchain purpose-built for intellectual property (IP) management.

The round also included participation from Hashed, Foresight Ventures, Samsung Next, Mirana Ventures, SparkLabs Global, and angel investors. In total, PIP Labs has raised $140 million across all funding rounds, with a16z Crypto participating at every stage from seed through Series B.

According to Bloomberg, the latest round values the startup at $2.25 billion, though PIP Labs has neither confirmed nor denied that figure.

Source: Story Protocol

Story Protocol's blockchain allows creators to assert ownership of their intellectual property through tokenization. This means they can formally register their IP on-chain, establish provenance, and set specific rules governing how their work can be used, shared, or modified — giving creators a way to protect their work and maintain control over how others use it.

"IP is the fundamental input that large models are trained on. Simply put, without IP, AI could hit a wall," the protocol stated in an announcement on X.

As AI solutions continue to proliferate, intellectual property can serve as training data for models. By integrating blockchain, the protocol promises to ensure creators are compensated when their work is used to train AI models, while also addressing issues like shadow datasets.

Related: Authors File Copyright Lawsuit Against Anthropic Over AI Model Training

According to PIP Labs, the technology is already gaining traction, with more than 200 teams and over 20 million IP assets being built on the platform across verticals including IP finance (IPFi), AI, and consumer markets.

The Web3 fundraising landscape saw a significant uptick in July, with deal volume rising 72.9% month-over-month to $1.44 billion, according to data from Messari. Venture funds Pantera Capital and Mirana Ventures led early-stage investments during that period.