PIP Labs, which operates Story Protocol, a Layer 1 community for licensing and sustaining mental property, has laid off a number of staff to discover alternatives associated to synthetic intelligence.
The corporate stated the cuts embody 5 full-time staff and three contractors, representing about 10% of the employees contributing to varied organizational tales. decryption. In accordance with Andrea Muttoni, chief protocol officer at Story, this contains Story Basis and the infrastructure layer Poseidon.
“PIP Labs is narrowing its focus via small staffing changes,” she stated in a press release. decryptionfamous that the corporate is beginning to lean into IP infrastructure for AI, with a concentrate on AI buying and selling knowledge and the emergence of AI brokers.
in Telegram Messages reviewed by decryptiona former worker stated the layoffs involved 15% of the employees behind Story Protocol, together with employees engaged on occasions.
When Story introduced an $80 million Sequence B funding spherical in 2024, PIP Labs positioned The community is getting used as a brand new strategy to scale back friction for creators by permitting them to license and remix their IP with out the necessity for rent-seeking attorneys. Story is designed to automate royalty funds via programmable licenses.
The funding spherical valued PIP Labs at $2 billion and was led by enterprise capital large Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from people together with Walt Disney Imagineering govt Scott Trowbridge and a pseudonymous NFT collector. Kosomo de Medici.
The community debuted final February with its native IP token, which has fallen 86% over the previous yr to round $0.80. CoinGecko. In September, the token reached an all-time excessive of $14.78, equal to a market capitalization of roughly $3.4 billion.
That very same month, a story-based meme coin modeled after Pink Fong, creator of “Child Shark,” collapsed. controversy arose Points surrounding the Korean firm’s IP behind YouTube’s viral hit. Concerning X, Story apologized for the confusion and famous that it was not concerned in licensing points between IP World, the IP-backed meme coin platform, and different events.
Muttoni stated the corporate stays centered on mental property, whether or not the story includes media or industries reminiscent of biotech, however the layoffs sign the corporate is changing into extra fascinated about machine-based customers slightly than people. The change comes as corporations together with Coinbase race to carry agent-friendly cryptocurrency wallets to market.
Final yr, Poseidon, an organization incubated by Story, raised $15 million in a seed funding spherical additionally led by Andreessen Horowitz. The startup provides AI builders entry to legally cleared coaching knowledge, and Muttoni stated Poseidon’s latest “traction is shaping the route of doubling down on the story.”
In January, Poseidon launched a dataset containing 33,000 hours of audio throughout 17 languages. About X, Poseidon’s Chief Scientist Sandeep Chinchari stated Audio is changing into a limiting issue for AI as it’s changing into the first interface between people and AI.
PIP Labs Layoffs to comply with This yr has seen a flurry of layoffs amongst corporations within the crypto business. Earlier this week, the workforce behind Ethereum’s Layer 2 community Optimism introduced let go 20 staff. And final month, Jack Dorsey’s Block, together with PIP Labs, laid off 4,000 staff, about 40% of its workforce, because it pivoted to AI.
