Story, led by A16Z and financed by Paris Hilton, has raised $54 million, marking a turning point in the IP space. What do they think is unique about Story Protocol? How does the project aim to revolutionize the digital world? The wealth-creating effect of blockchain has already made traditional finance eager to move. If you want to participate in Story's private placement, please add WeChat at the end of the article.
By leveraging network effects, Story Protocol can better balance openness and value, and through precise network algorithm incentives, continue to amplify the network effects of IP and break through the limitations of existing platforms. By storing proof of ownership and automatically executing smart contracts on the blockchain, Story Protocol will grant ownership of native IP or derivatives to all creators and fans, and build an IP evolution network. With the support of top investors and all-star project parties and rich experience in IP creation, the Story Protocol team is expected to bring a new IP co-creation paradigm that goes beyond the existing NFT gameplay.
Story Protocol
Project name: Story Protocol
Section: On-chain IP protocol Basic section
Total circulation: 1 billion (small circulation)
Launch time: Q1 2024 (no lock-up)
Investment institution: a16z led the A round of $25 million, totaling $54 million
Other investors: Hashed (the largest blockchain fund in South Korea), Endeavor (the agency behind Gu Ailing), Samsung Next, Foresight Ventures (a crypto investment institution in Shanghai), Dao5 (a game company), Insignia Venture Partners (a venture capital company in Singapore), Alliance DAO, Mirana Ventures, and angel investors TPG Capital founder and chairman David Bonderman, Dapper Labs founder and CEO Roham Gharegozlou
team member:
According to official information, Story Protocol has three co-founders, who are from South Korea, the United States, and Chinese Americans, forming a unique "China-US-Korea" background distribution. Among them, co-founder S.Y.Lee is undoubtedly the core figure of Story Protocol. According to Linkedin data, he graduated from Oxford University in the United Kingdom and served as the chairman of the historic Oxford University Debating Society, a position that has been held by many celebrities such as Einstein, Reagan, Nixon, Carter, etc.
It is worth noting that S.Y.Lee also has a political and business background. He served as an intern in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Korean Parliament, and then worked as a special writer for Korea JoongAng Daily, one of the largest media groups in South Korea, since 2013. Since 2021, he has served as a partner of Kakao Entertainment, a Korean entertainment, mass media and publishing company, and a venture partner of Hashed, a well-known Korean venture capital firm. It is worth noting that Hashed is the top Korean investor in Story Protocol's latest round of financing.
The other two co-founders, Jason Levy and Jason Zhao, are more inclined to the product technology dimension. They are both alumni of Stanford University. The former has worked for many years in leading companies such as Apple and Episode, while the latter has been a product manager in Google's DeepMind project.
The core contribution team of Story Protocol also almost all have backgrounds in prestigious universities, and they cover a variety of roles including story developers, product managers, senior developers, etc.:
Allen Chuang: Bu Zhi DAO Contributor;
· Ben Sternberg: S.Y.Lee's former co-founder at Radish Fiction;
· Gatsby Kim: S.Y.Lee's former director of personnel and finance at Radish Fiction;
Jonny Chang: Senior Information Security Analyst at VMware;
Leo Chen: VP, leads the engineering team at Story Protocol, formerly software development manager at AWS and VP of development at Harmony;
Liz Tingue: Story Protocol story director, Columbia University undergraduate, Harvard BA graduate;
Raúl Martínez: IP protocols and smart contracts architect;
Spyros Tsiounis: worked as a story developer at several companies.
Susan Park: Story Protocol design lead, formerly the Web3 product Googler design lead at Google;
Weilei Yu: Head of Growth at Story Protocol, formerly Head of Marketing and Developer Relations at Flow Blockchain, CMO at Subspace Labs;
Ze Huang - Engineer at Story Protocol.
Story Protocol
The rise of blockchain technology has triggered a new round of thinking about intellectual property ownership. In the field of digital content, the use of cryptocurrencies and smart contracts by platforms has brought up the question of how to better protect the rights of creators and achieve new types of ownership and monetization. Story Protocol, as an innovative solution in this field, has far-reaching impact.
Story Protocol is a forward-thinking project that aims to redefine how intellectual property is managed and owned in the digital age. The initiative aims to address the challenges surrounding intellectual property, content creators, and the complexity of an inclusive digital ecosystem.
Story Protocol has built a simplified framework to fully manage the intellectual property development lifecycle, with features such as source tracking, seamless licensing and revenue sharing. For creators of various types of media (such as prose, images, games, audio, etc.), applications based on Story Protocol can help writers and artists clarify the provenance of their works and allow anyone to contribute and remix while maintaining the value of the works and their contributions.
Story Protocol aims to work with third-party developers to build a rich ecosystem that provides services such as crowdfunding, capital formation, IP discovery, licensing modules, AI content certification, and community development. By adopting an open modular architecture, any application can be connected to each other, eliminating the platform risk for ecosystem developers.
Key components
Tokenized intellectual property
The core mechanism of Story Protocol is to realize the unique tokenization of intellectual property. By converting intellectual property assets into blockchain tokens, authors can effectively control their works. These tokens not only represent ownership, royalties and various rights, but also build a transparent and fair reward system.
Smart contracts
Story Protocol automates the management of intellectual property ownership and transactions through smart contracts, which not only reduces management costs but also minimizes the risk of disputes, ensuring that authors receive the contributions they deserve as quickly as possible.
IP Market
The platform is a market that enables IP token transactions, providing creators with a way to monetize their creations beyond traditional methods. This market has formed a vibrant ecosystem of buyers and sellers who together drive innovation and value creation.
$54 million
A16Z’s leading role in the $54 million funding round underscores Story Protocol’s prominence in the blockchain space. A16Z’s track record of identifying and developing innovative technologies further enhances the project’s credibility and potential.
The addition of celebrity Paris Hilton as a backer and investor in Story Protocol has certainly put the project in the spotlight. Her support not only increases the platform’s appeal, but also positions Story Protocol as a disruptive force in the field of intellectual property ownership.
Summary of key points
Story Protocol democratizes intellectual property ownership through innovative approaches, empowering creators, artists, and content producers and successfully achieving the transition from centralized control to a decentralized system.
This system abandons the complex legal procedures, intermediaries and bureaucracy in the traditional intellectual property ownership system. Story Protocol simplifies these complexities, reduces friction in intellectual property transactions, and enables creators to focus more on their creative skills.
At the same time, the borderless nature of blockchain technology enables the Story Protocol Marketplace to reach a wider audience, and creators from all over the world will have broader opportunities and collaborate globally.
