PIP Labs, which operates Story Protocol, a Layer 1 network for licensing and maintaining intellectual property, has laid off several employees to explore opportunities related to artificial intelligence.
The company said the cuts include five full-time employees and three contractors, representing about 10% of the staff contributing to various organizational stories. decryption. According to Andrea Muttoni, chief protocol officer at Story, this includes Story Foundation and the infrastructure layer Poseidon.
“PIP Labs is narrowing its focus through small staffing adjustments,” she said in a statement. decryptionnoted that the company is starting to lean into IP infrastructure for AI, with a focus on AI trading data and the emergence of AI agents.
in Telegram Messages reviewed by decryptiona former employee said the layoffs concerned 15% of the staff behind Story Protocol, including staff working on events.
When Story announced an $80 million Series B funding round in 2024, PIP Labs positioned The network is being used as a new way to reduce friction for creators by allowing them to license and remix their IP without the need for rent-seeking lawyers. Story is designed to automate royalty payments through programmable licenses.
The funding round valued PIP Labs at $2 billion and was led by venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from individuals including Walt Disney Imagineering executive Scott Trowbridge and a pseudonymous NFT collector. Kosomo de Medici.
The network debuted last February with its native IP token, which has fallen 86% over the past year to around $0.80. CoinGecko. In September, the token reached an all-time high of $14.78, equivalent to a market capitalization of approximately $3.4 billion.
That same month, a story-based meme coin modeled after Pink Fong, creator of “Baby Shark,” collapsed. controversy arose Issues surrounding the Korean company’s IP behind YouTube’s viral hit. Regarding X, Story apologized for the confusion and noted that it was not involved in licensing issues between IP World, the IP-backed meme coin platform, and other parties.
Muttoni said the company remains focused on intellectual property, whether the story involves media or industries such as biotech, but the layoffs signal the company is becoming more interested in machine-based users rather than humans. The change comes as companies including Coinbase race to bring agent-friendly cryptocurrency wallets to market.
Last year, Poseidon, a company incubated by Story, raised $15 million in a seed funding round also led by Andreessen Horowitz. The startup gives AI developers access to legally cleared training data, and Muttoni said Poseidon’s recent “traction shapes the way the story doubles down.”
In January, Poseidon introduced a dataset containing 33,000 hours of audio across 17 languages. About X, Poseidon’s Chief Scientist Sandeep Chinchari said Audio is becoming a limiting factor for AI as it is becoming the primary interface between humans and AI.
PIP Labs Layoffs to follow This year has seen a flurry of layoffs among companies in the crypto industry. Earlier this week, the team behind Ethereum’s Layer 2 network Optimism announced let go 20 employees. And last month, Jack Dorsey’s Block, along with PIP Labs, laid off 4,000 employees, about 40% of its workforce, as it pivoted to AI.
