Poseidon Secures $15M Seed Funding to Build Decentralized AI Data Layer

Poseidon, incubated by Story Protocol, has raised $15 million in seed funding led by a16z crypto to address AI's critical bottleneck: access to high-quality, rights-cleared training data. The startup offers a decentralized data layer specifically designed for real-world AI applications.

"Major AI labs still face a scarcity of licensed training data," said Sandeep Chinchali, Poseidon's co-founder and a Stanford-trained AI expert. The team combines automated labeling with human refinement to maintain quality at scale, targeting failure modes in robotics, autonomous vehicles, and wearable tech.

Meta's $14 billion acquisition of Scale AI has created new opportunities in the space. Poseidon's solution leverages programmable IP licensing through Story Protocol while coordinating a global data network.