KOR Protocol, an on-chain platform designed to streamline the management of creative assets, has secured $7.5 million in a Series A funding round co-led by 1kx and Blockchain Capital. The investment values the company at $100 million and will be used to expand its infrastructure for registering, verifying, distributing, and settling creative works such as music and films directly on the blockchain.
Built on Base, Coinbase’s Ethereum Layer 2 network, KOR Protocol aims to address persistent inefficiencies in the creative industry—rights management, royalty distribution, and transparent attribution. The platform functions as a “creative asset clearinghouse,” leveraging stablecoins to streamline licensing and royalty payments and eliminate the slow, opaque processes of legacy entertainment infrastructure.
The funding arrives amid rising industry concern over AI-generated content. Deezer data shows nearly 75,000 AI-created songs are uploaded daily (44% of new submissions), yet they account for only 1–3% of streams and 85% are flagged as fake. KOR sees the bottleneck not as content creation but as ownership verification, rights allocation, and payment settlement—a problem it aims to solve.
Other backers include Republic Crypto, Sfermion, Animoca Brands, Solana, Avalanche, Alumni Ventures, and SevenX. KOR has already reported 1 million lifetime sign-ups, 400,000 connected wallets, over 1,000 IP partners, and more than $2 million in gross revenue. Partners include Black Mirror, Beatport, mau5trap, Imogen Heap, Banijay Group, and KDDI. The company also confirmed plans to launch its own token, further aligning its economics with the crypto ecosystem.
In a competitive landscape, KOR stands out by building on existing Ethereum infrastructure rather than launching a new dedicated blockchain—unlike peers such as Story Protocol (which raised $80M in a 2024 Series B) or Camp Network. Both 1kx and Blockchain Capital have invested across these differing architectures, signaling broad investor confidence in blockchain-based IP solutions.
