Decentralized data infrastructure, Poseidon, raises $15 million in seed funding to construct a data layer on Story Protocol.
In a significant move towards advancing artificial intelligence (AI) technology, Poseidon, a new player in the AI landscape, has announced the launch of a decentralized AI data layer. The purpose of Poseidon is to address the critical data bottleneck in AI development by providing high-quality, diverse, and IP-safe training data sourced globally.
Poseidon, which was incubated by Story Protocol, another portfolio company of A16z Crypto, is partnering with universities, Fortune 500 companies, and top robotics firms to build its AI capabilities. According to Chris Dixon, the founder of a16z Crypto, AI foundation models have already exhausted the most easily accessible training data.
Poseidon's unique approach to data collection and coordination involves using smartphone SDKs, specialized apps, and hardware partnerships to crowdsource data globally from a wide range of contributors. This ensures real-world and regional diversity, which is crucial for AI systems to function effectively in various industries.
The platform also features a structured validation pipeline that automates curation through machine learning filters. These filters remove personal information, identify and flag low-quality samples, detect duplicates, and involve human reviewers for edge cases, thereby addressing the "garbage in, garbage out" problem.
Poseidon's decentralized data layer also prioritizes targeted data collection based on real-world failure modes. Every dataset is validated using metadata checks and Story's programmable IP licensing. This ensures legal clarity and intellectual property rights management, ensuring contributors receive attribution and ongoing royalties, not only for raw data but also for derived works like annotations or synthetic augmentations.
Poseidon's decentralized data layer is built on Story Protocol, a layer-1 blockchain designed primarily to secure intellectual property rights. The platform utilizes Story's programmable IP layer and immutable IP registry for data access.
Poseidon has already secured $15 million in a seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz and A16z. The platform has partnered with an unnamed top robotics firm and an audio foundation model team sourcing dialect-rich speech data.
Poseidon's decentralized data layer aims to establish a new economic foundation for the internet, rewarding creators and suppliers for providing diverse inputs. Applicable use cases for Poseidon's data layer include robotics, autonomous vehicles, wearables, and AI agents, which require more data than what is available on the internet.
By addressing the data bottleneck in AI development, Poseidon is poised to enable broader and safer access for AI development and power sophisticated applications across industries.
Poseidon, in partnership with universities, Fortune 500 companies, and top robotics firms, is using its unique approach of global data collection through smartphones, apps, and hardware partnerships to supply high-quality, diverse, and IP-safe training data for advanced artificial-intelligence (AI) technology.
With its decentralized data layer prioritizing targeted data collection and intellectual property rights management, Poseidon's aim is to address the critical data bottleneck in AI development and power sophisticated applications across industries, including robotics, autonomous vehicles, wearables, and AI agents.
