PIP Labs, developer of the layer 1 intellectual property blockchain Story Protocol, has raised $80 million in a Series B funding round led by a16z crypto.
PIP Labs said Wednesday that other investors in the round include Polychain Capital, Stability AI senior vice president and board member Scott Trowbridge, K11 founder and billionaire Adrian Cheng, and digital art collector Cozomo de' Medici.
The company is now valued at $2.25 billion. In this article, I will explain why it has become the darling of capital! Why is a16 optimistic about Story Protocol?
Project Introduction
Story Protocol brings IP into the Internet age by providing an open IP repository and a set of modules to interact with IP in a frictionless way.
Our open IP repository enables creative IP (text, images, audio, etc.) to record its evolution from birth to digital co-creation. Just as Git tracks code through branches and version control, Story Protocol aims to be the provenance layer for creative IP.
In addition to tracking attribution as IP evolves, our module enables seamless composability, allowing anyone to contribute to the IP and capture the value of their contribution. Our module adds functionality on top of IP repositories, similar to how GitHub extends the functionality of Git by providing forks and pull requests.
Data structures and modules
To achieve this vision, our protocol architecture consists of two elements: data structures and modules. Data structures are the "nouns" of the protocol, storing relevant IP metadata into "IP Lego". Modules are "verbs" that provide multiple functions for IP assets registered on the protocol. Story Protocol's data structures capture the core components of IP, and its modules represent the operations that can be performed on the data structures.
The data structure (the “noun”) meets the first fundamental requirement of Internet-native intellectual property by providing a technical standard for tracking provenance and attribution. Just as the creation of protocols such as HTTP, HTML, and CSS accelerated the adoption of the Internet by enabling reliable and structured information sharing, IP on Story Protocol will play a similar role. This standardization makes it easy for any application to leverage our data structure as a global source of IP.
Our modules (“verbs”) meet the second requirement of Internet-native IP by enabling frictionless extension of IP. Once IP is captured in our IP Lego blocks, it can be combined and extended through our modules. Modules are functions that unlock a range of capabilities, such as licensing, revenue streams for derivative works. Our licensing modules enable programmable licenses to be generated with the same flexibility and expressiveness as code, just like a programmable Getty Images for all forms of IP. Instead of going through one-on-one legal negotiations, creators can transparently set licensing conditions so that others can seamlessly extend their work.
Built on blockchain
The entire infrastructure — data structures and modules — is built on the blockchain. As content proliferates on the internet, blockchains provide provenance and authenticity without the need for intermediary entities. Crucially, the decentralized nature of blockchains enables developers to create applications on the protocol without fear of certain interference.
About the Team
The project's founding team has a very standard lineup, with three members: CEO Seung Yoon (SY) Lee, COO Jason Levy and technical director Jason Zhao.
SY Lee is the core of the project. He served as the first Asian chairman of the debate society Oxford Union during college, and has interned in the US House of Representatives and the Korean Congress. He is a venture partner of Hashed, the largest blockchain fund company in Korea. He is the co-founder of the Radish novel platform, and has created high-quality IPs on the platform in batches. In five years, Radish was sold for US$440 million.
Jason Levy holds an MBA from Stanford University. He worked as a financial analyst at Apple for four years and then worked at Pocket Gems. As a project director, he built Episode, an interactive narrative game under his company, into a top narrative game with a revenue of 100 million and over 200 million downloads. He is responsible for managing the game development route, the writing team, the design team, and the engineering team. Jason Zhao graduated from Stanford University with an undergraduate degree in philosophy and switched to CS for graduate studies. After graduation, he worked as a product manager at Google DeepMind. He has an interdisciplinary background and experience in the field of AI commercialization.
SY Lee’s excellent resume and IP-related experience serve as the face of the project, Jason Levy’s rich practical management experience is used for the project’s operation and maintenance and user growth, and Jason Zhao, as the technical director, not only understands technology, but his interdisciplinary background also allows him to better align with the team’s goals. The combination of these three can be said to be just right. The project’s official website lists 23 main members, and the official Twitter account shows more than that, including main consultant David Goyer, screenwriter of The Dark Knight trilogy, Apple TV+ series director, plus a16z’s token design, legal, and strategic consultants, etc.
Financing Details
On August 21, the US LYVC-invested project, Story Protocol, a developer of intellectual property blockchain Programmable IP (PIP) Labs, completed a $80 million Series B financing, with a valuation of $2.25 billion. This round of financing was led by a16z Crypto, with participation from Polychain Capital and other investors. Angel investors include Scott Trowbridge, senior vice president and board member of Stability AI, Adrian Cheng, founder of K11, and Cozomo de' Medici, a digital art collector. The Series B financing brings PIP Labs' total financing to $140 million. Last year, the company raised $54 million in its Series A financing, also led by a16z crypto.
Project Highlights
The founder is S.Y. Lee, who previously created an online fiction platform called Radish Fiction and sold it for $440 million. He then became a partner at Hashed, and before that he worked in the South Korean Congress and the U.S. House of Representatives, and also worked for two newspapers. He has the government, media, and capital in his hands, so his team’s resume is very impressive!
Story Protocol’s core goal is to disrupt the traditional landscape of intellectual property management by leveraging the transformative power of blockchain technology.
Story Protocol is committed to bringing IP into the Internet era, building an open IP repository and a set of modules that can easily interact with IP.
The open IP repository provides an ideal platform for recording the evolution of all aspects of creative IP, including text, images, audio, etc. Just as Git effectively tracks the evolution of code through branches and version control, Story Protocol aims to become a tracking and management tool for creative IP.
Summarize
Story Protocol leads the wave of on-chain revival that is surging around the world
Investors, technology enthusiasts, and even ordinary people around the world have high expectations for it. This expectation is not groundless, but is based on the strong potential and far-reaching impact demonstrated by Story Protocol. With the participation of top institutions in China, the United States, and South Korea, the on-chain IP protocol Story Protocol may become the next 100x coin to detonate the crypto market. The positive sentiment in the market also shows that Story Protocol can demonstrate its strong influence and innovation in future development, bringing more surprises and gains to investors.
Project name: Story Protocol
Section: On-chain IP protocol Basic section
Issued: 1 billion (small circulation)
Investment institutions: a16z led the US$25 million Series A round, US$80 million Series B round, totaling US$105 million
Expected listing: Q4 2024
Project unit price: Pay attention to understand
