Excited to announce we’re leading a $15M seed round in Poseidon, which was incubated by @StoryProtocol and is building a decentralized data layer to coordinate supply and demand for AI training data. The first generation of AI foundation models were trained on data that seemed to be an effectively unlimited resource. Today, the most accessible resources such as books and websites have mostly been exhausted, and data has become a limiting factor in AI progress. Much of the data that remains now is either lower quality or off-limits due to IP protections. For some of the most promising AI applications — across robotics, autonomous vehicles, and spatial intelligence — the data doesn’t even exist yet. Now these systems need entirely new types of information: multi-sensory, rich in edge cases, captured in the wild. Where will all this physical-world data come from? The challenge isn't just technical — it’s a problem of coordination. Thousands of contributors must work together in a distributed way to source, label, and maintain the physical data that next-gen AI needs. We believe no centralized approach can efficiently orchestrate the data creation and curation that’s needed at the required level of scale and diversity. A decentralized approach can solve this. @psdnai allows suppliers to collect the data AI companies need, while ensuring IP safety via Story’s programmable IP license. This seeks to establish a new economic foundation for the internet, where data creators get fairly compensated for helping AI companies power the next generation of intelligent systems. Poseidon’s team, led by Chief Scientist and Cofounder @SPChinchali, brings deep expertise in AI infrastructure. Sandeep is a professor at UT Austin specializing in AI, robotics, and distributed systems, with a PhD from Stanford in AI and distributed systems. Head of Product and Cofounder @sarickshah spent a decade as a machine learning engineer, scaling AI products for large enterprises across financial services, telecom, and healthcare. We are excited to support Poseidon in its work to solve one of the most critical bottlenecks in AI development.

You can now make AI video that's "filmed" in a real location 🤯 Like this Stormtrooper's fundraising vlog that tours @a16z's SF office - and looks just like the real thing! It's easy to put AI characters in your own office, home, or vacation spot. How to do it 👇

A tribute to Hank Aaron ⚾️