Story and OKX Ventures Launch Fund With Up to $10M to Accelerate Innovation at the Intersection of…
New fund to back early-stage startups reimagining how intellectual property is created, owned, and monetized in the age of AI
June 24, 2025 — PIP Labs, the initial core contributor to Story, the world’s $IP blockchain, has partnered with OKX Ventures to launch a fund with up to $10 Million to accelerate innovation at the intersection of $IP and AI. The fund is designed to support early-stage startups building at the frontier of $IP innovation, decentralized AI, and the emergence of $IP as a critical financial asset class.
Interested builders can submit their project for consideration here.
Rethinking $IP
Today, AI models are trained on everything from fan fiction to platinum albums, often without credit or consent. $IP holders and creators are left unprotected, while their work fuels systems they can’t control. At the same time, generative AI companies are struggling to source specialized training data — one of the fastest growing forms of $IP — required for building the next generation of AI products.
It’s clear that the old $IP system wasn’t built for this world.
Story offers a new solution: a programmable $IP layer for the AI era. By turning intellectual property into an onchain, programmable asset class, Story enables developers and creators to protect, license, and monetize their IP. The result is a more aligned, more sustainable $IP economy where both $IP owners and AI systems can thrive.
A Selective, Solution-Oriented Approach
The new $10M fund, priced in $IP as of May 20, 2025, will focus on backing builders solving real problems at the intersection of $IP and AI; founders designing systems where $IP isn’t an afterthought, but a core design primitive. These are startups working on:
$IP Real World Assets
AI and Data Licensing
Programmable $IP Applications
Rather than follow a fixed accelerator structure, the fund will be co-managed by Story and OKX Ventures, with both teams collaboratively sourcing and evaluating projects. Investments will be made on an ongoing, highly selective basis.
“We’re not looking to fund thousands of projects — we’re looking for the right ones,” said Jeff Ren, Founder at OKX Ventures. “Story is creating the foundational infrastructure for an IP-native internet, and we’re excited to support builders who share that long-term vision.”
“In the age of AI-generated abundance, incentivizing scarcity and originality is the design challenge of our time. This fund helps us find and support the rare founders pushing those ideas forward — not just conceptually, but in practice,” said Andrea Muttoni, President of the Story Foundation. “The innovations we’re looking for are the ones using programmable $IP to solve real problems: from training AI on licensed data to creating new economic rails for $IP holders. If you believe the internet needs better primitives for data, creativity and ownership, you’re who we’re looking for.”
Startups backed by the fund will gain access to:
Apply for the Story x OKX Venture Fund now.
About Story Foundation
Story is a blockchain purpose-built to make intellectual property programmable. By turning $IP into digital assets with embedded rights, Story enables creators, companies, and AI systems to protect, license, and monetize $IP and creative works seamlessly across the internet. Designed for scale, Story bridges the gap between outdated legal frameworks and the realities of AI-era creation, making it possible to track provenance, automate licensing, and unlock new markets for ideas. As the foundation for $IP’s evolution into an internet-native asset class, Story powers a more open, equitable, and composable creative economy. Learn more at story.foundation.
About OKX Ventures
OKX Ventures is the investment arm of global leading crypto exchange and Web3 technology company OKX. It focuses on exploring the best blockchain projects on a global scale, supporting cutting-edge blockchain technology innovation, promoting the healthy development of the global blockchain industry, and investing in long-term structural value. Through its commitment to supporting entrepreneurs who contribute to the development of the blockchain industry, OKX Ventures helps build innovative companies and brings global resources and historical experience to blockchain projects. Find out more about OKX Ventures here.