“A new wave of AI-powered search engines give comprehensive answers instead of guiding users to websites. Social networks are increasingly populated by AI-generated images and videos,” Dixon writes in a blog post. “These AI systems were likely trained on original, human-created content but often don’t credit or cite their sources. If there’s no attribution or compensation, what incentive will there be to publish original creations on the open internet?”

AI systems are just one area where content is being used and will be used in the future, but they are a significant one, which is why Story is not the only player in this space. Just last week, another startup, called Sahara AI, announced $43 million in funding to build out its own approach to addressing the question of how best to track and monetize IP in the age of AI.

“Story distinguishes itself from Sahara by focusing on the IP and data layer of AI solutions rather than the existing AI infrastructure stack,” Lee told me in response to a question about how the two are different from each other. “While Sahara appears to target intellectual property concerns, these are mostly focused on data which is very different from the legal regime of IP. Story sees potential for partnership as the IP layer of solutions like Sahara and Ritual. We can become close partners.”

Lee himself has had a front-row seat to the story (so to speak) of content in the digital age. He started out as an enterprising journalist in the U.K. when he founded a platform called byline.com in 2014. He then built a crowdsourced, serialized fiction app called Radish (a competitor to the likes of Inkitt and Wattpad), which eventually he sold to Kakao for $440 million.

Story -- which Lee co-founded with Jason Zhao, the CPO — is, in a way, the natural progression of these previous experiences.

“If you look at everything from, you know, Netflix to Disney, they pour billions of dollars into content, but really it’s billions of dollars into marketing,” he said. “It’s kind of a zero sum war for attention to get more users and subscribers.”

His previous company, Radish, getting acquired for $440 million made him “rethink the dynamics of the market,” he said.

“I was drawing a lot of my venture capital money out for marketing,” he added, saying this is his attempt to build a different model to avoid that for creators of the future.

Whether it will work, and whether creators want to use it, are questions that are yet to be answered.

Those who believe they have a lock on how to invest for future scenarios are bullish, though.

“What Bitcoin did for money and finance, Story is doing for content and IP,” said Olaf Carlson-Wee, the founder and CEO of Polychain Capital, in a statement. “Web3’s first phase was triggered by the 2008 financial crisis, leading to a revolution on money through networks like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Now advancements in AI are triggering a second phase in Web3, which will revolutionize IP.”

This article originally appeared on TechCrunch at https://techcrunch.com/2024/08/21/story-raises-83m-at-a-2-25b-valuation-to-build-a-blockchain-for-the-business-of-content-ip-in-the-age-of-ai/