Sekai, a Palo Alto, CA-based provider of an AI-driven storytelling platform, raised $3.1M in Seed funding.
The round was led by Hashed, with participation from a16z CSX (Sekai was part of the Fall 2024 cohort), Azuki, Orange DAO and Zypsy.
The company intends to use the funds to accelerate its development efforts to shift towards a more inclusive and expansive vision of storytelling, one where IP is dynamic, cross-cultural, and fundamentally collaborative.
Led by CEO Kaiser Kim, Sekai leverages Story, a purpose-built blockchain, to make it easy for creators of all levels to design stories within minutes. Users can combine characters, art, and music to create 4-panel stories that evolve and expand into rich, interconnected universes. Each story element, from AI-generated art to characters and background audio, is registered and tokenized on the Story blockchain, securing creators’ intellectual property rights while enabling permissionless remixing and collaboration. This infrastructure transforms single-player stories into multiplayer IP universes, where story worlds can freely adapt and evolve without legal barriers, creating both creative and economic synergies.
The company recently launched its mobile application along with a new Worlds feature that enables creators to build communities centered around their original IP. With Worlds, users can now create shared story universes where fans and creators collaborate to expand narratives, remix characters, and develop new plotlines together.
FinSMEs
05/12/2024