Story Protocol raises over $54 million from investors including Endeavour

Story Protocol, which claims to be developing an open system for expanding intellectual property through online collaboration and paying any number of contributors, announced that it has raised more than $54 million in funding.

The funding was led by a16z crypto, part of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, as well as investors including Endeavor and Samsung Ventures.

According to Story Protocol, it is an intellectual property platform “optimized for the internet age” that “aims to democratize the creation of intellectual property through a global and extensible IP repository.” The company said its framework manages the full lifecycle of IP development, enabling features like lineage tracing, licensing and revenue sharing. Applications based on Story Protocol “give authors and artists the ability to track the provenance of their work, allowing anyone to contribute and remix while capturing the value of their contributions,” according to the San Francisco-based startup.

Story Protocol hopes to work with third-party developers to provide services such as crowdfunding, capital formation, IP discovery, licensing, authentication for AI content, and community engagement.

“In a world of utter abundance catalyzed by generative AI, blockchain technology represents the perfect solution for transparent lineage tracing and fair attribution,” said Seung Yoon “SY” Lee, co-founder of Story Protocol, in announcing the funding . “Story Protocol will usher in a new era of entrepreneurial creators and offer existing IP owners a whole new way to engage audiences and grow their IP.”

In addition, Story Protocol announced that it has hired filmmaker and writer David S. Goyer as a consultant. Goyer was the screenwriter of the Blade trilogy (1998-2004) and The Dark Knight trilogy (2005-2012) and showrunner of the Apple TV+ series Foundation. He has also worked on gaming titles such as Call of Duty and the virtual reality project Vader Immortal: A Star Wars VR Series.

“I envision a future where creators have greater control over their intellectual property, expand their influence on a global scale, and have direct connections to their community,” Goyer said in a company statement. “Story Protocol marks a new era for the entertainment industry and the beginning of a new ownership model for creators and fans.”

In addition to a16z, Story Protocol’s investors include Hashed, Endeavor, Samsung Next, dao5, Insignia Venture Partners, David Bonderman (Founder and Chairman of TPG Capital), Si-hyuk Bang (Founder and 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 Lau 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 (founder of Tapas) and Roham Gharegozlou (founder and CEO of Dapper Labs).

“Artists and fans are an integral part of any successful IP franchise, and Story Protocol will support platforms that allow them to participate in the creative process,” commented Ben Enowitz, Senior VP, Corporate Development and Talent Ventures at Endeavor. “Technology cannot replace authentic human creativity – but it can bring communities together to realize the full potential of existing and emerging intellectual property rights.”

The three founders of Story Protocol are Lee, who previously founded mobile series fiction platform Radish (acquired by Korea’s Kakao Entertainment in 2021 for US$440 million); Jason Levy, who led content at Episode, a popular storytelling app; and Jason Zhao, who served as a product lead at Google’s DeepMind, translating AI research into customer-centric applications.

Other leaders at Story Protocol include Weilei Yu, who previously led flow blockchain growth at Dapper Labs; Leo Chen, founding vice president of technology at Harmony Protocol and former chief technical officer at Amazon; Ben Sternberg, most recently CFO of Radish Media and previously co-founder of Fexy Media; and Susan Park, who served as design lead at Google, where she led the company’s early Web3 patent filings.

Pictured above (left to right): Story Protocol co-founders Seung Yoon “SY” Lee, Jason Levy, Jason Zhao