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 mentioned the cuts embrace 5 full-time staff and three contractors, representing about 10% of the workers contributing to numerous organizational tales. decryption. In line with Andrea Muttoni, chief protocol officer at Story, this consists of Story Basis and the infrastructure layer Poseidon.
“PIP Labs is narrowing its focus via small staffing changes,” she mentioned in an announcement. decryptionfamous that the corporate is beginning to lean into IP infrastructure for AI, with a deal with AI buying and selling knowledge and the emergence of AI brokers.
in Telegram Messages reviewed by decryptiona former worker mentioned the layoffs involved 15% of the workers behind Story Protocol, together with workers engaged on occasions.
When Story introduced an $80 million Collection B funding spherical in 2024, PIP Labs positioned The community is getting used as a brand new approach to scale back friction for creators by permitting them to license and remix their IP with out the necessity for rent-seeking legal professionals. 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 big Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from people together with Walt Disney Imagineering government 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 12 months 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 hits. 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 mentioned the corporate stays centered on mental property, whether or not the story includes media or industries corresponding to biotech, however the layoffs sign the corporate is changing into extra enthusiastic about machine-based customers fairly than people. The change comes as firms together with Coinbase race to deliver agent-friendly cryptocurrency wallets to market.
Final 12 months, Poseidon, an organization incubated by Story, raised $15 million in a seed funding spherical additionally led by Andreessen Horowitz. The startup offers AI builders entry to legally cleared coaching knowledge, and Muttoni mentioned 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 mentioned 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 12 months has seen a flurry of layoffs amongst firms within the crypto trade. Earlier this week, the workforce behind Ethereum’s Layer 2 community Optimism introduced that 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.
