With AI creating new issues regarding theft of intellectual property, San Francisco-based startup Story Protocol raised an $80 million Series B to try to solve the increasing problem.

The new round was led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Polychain and others. Founded in 2022, Story has raised $140 million to date, per the company. The new round reportedly values the company at $2.25 billion.

IP theft is nothing new, but the rise of AI has heightened the stakes as generative AI models are ingesting copyrighted material — without permission — to train and learn.

Story’s blockchain network allows IP owners to store their IP on the platform, embedding terms to use it — such as  licensing fees — into smart contracts. Basically, the blockchain aims to ensure owners are compensated when their IP is used.

“Big Tech is stealing IP without consent and capturing all the profit,” said S.Y. Lee, co-founder of Story. “First, they will gobble up your IP for their AI models without any compensation. … The current state of AI completely destroys the incentive to create original IP for all of us.”

IP battle

The funding announcement comes just a day after OpenAI announced a partnership agreement with Condé Nast to display content from the various publications it owns as AI companies are facing pushback from many media firms whose content they ingest.

Last year, OpenAI and its biggest backer, Microsoft, were sued by The New York Times regarding copyright issues related to using the newspaper’s intellectual property.

Other startups and media companies also have come to some sort of partnership agreements to allow AI models to use their content to learn as content producers seek to project their IP.

Illustration: Dom Guzman