KOR Protocol Secures $7.5 Million Funding to Become the Clearinghouse for Creative Assets in the AI Era

Backed by top-tier capital and leading entertainment IPs, can it lead the new AI entertainment Web3 track?

Written by: Grok, Doubao

Compiled by: Saoirse, Foresight News

On July 7, KOR Protocol, a blockchain clearing platform for the entertainment sector, announced the completion of a $7.5 million Series A funding round, achieving a valuation of $100 million. The round was led by 1kx and Blockchain Capital, with participation from Republic Crypto, Sfermion, Animoca Brands, Alumni Ventures, SevenX Ventures, Avalanche, Solana, Camp Network, and others. Prior to this Series A round, KOR Protocol had completed several rounds of early financing, supplemented by strategic investments, including a stake acquisition by Camp Network, which has led to deep collaborative efforts around music remixing and IP tokenization.

Founded in 2024, KOR Protocol is an on-chain creative asset clearing platform built on the Coinbase Layer2 network, Base. The project provides verification, routing, and settlement infrastructure for creative works such as music and films. By registering assets on-chain, it helps creators match with brands, platforms, and distributors, enabling programmable revenue-sharing payments through stablecoins like USDC. KOR Protocol operates within the decentralized intellectual property (IP) management and entertainment infrastructure sector, aiming to build an end-to-end creative asset clearing system.

As of the funding announcement, KOR Protocol reported over 1 million registrations, 400,000 connected wallets, and more than 1,000 IP partners, generating over $2 million in total revenue.

Data Source: KOR Protocol Official Website and Funding Announcement ( July 2026 Data )

Team and Founder Background

The founding team of KOR Protocol combines industry veterans, technical experts, and entrepreneurs.

Inder Phull is one of the co-founders and previously co-founded Pixelynx, a metaverse startup focused on the fusion of music, gaming, and Web3, which was later acquired by Animoca Brands. His experience in entertainment IP and Web3 provides early industry connections for the project.

*KOR Protocol Co-founder Inder Phull, * Linkedin Link

Ritty Quin officially became the CEO of KOR Protocol at the end of 2025. Her public resume shows that she holds a PhD from University College London, previously worked at ByteDance, and later focused on marketing in the tech industry. She is also an electronic music producer signed to Live Nation Asia, with works that have charted on Beatport and BBC Radio 1, and has headlined the Creamfields music festival in Asia, possessing dual experience as a creator and in business operations.

KOR Protocol's advisory team includes renowned electronic musicians deadmau5, Richie Hawtin, Grammy Award winner Imogen Heap, as well as the British electronic duo Disclosure and German DJ Dixon.

Implementation Path and Technical Highlights

KOR Protocol aims to become a single system for creative transactions in the AI era, achieving verification, routing, and settlement of creative assets. The project intends to provide a transparent, efficient, and scalable environment for IP management through the integration of blockchain, AI, and DeFi, reducing reliance on traditional intermediaries and supporting collaboration between creators and brands, platforms.

The implementation path includes building a core infrastructure layer and an upper product suite. The infrastructure focuses on three engines: Verify (verifying ownership and provenance), Route (cross-platform routing and matching), Settle (using stablecoins like USDC for instant payments and royalty splits). The project is deployed on Coinbase's Layer2 network, Base, supporting persistent digital asset identifiers and complex licensing agreement management.

Technical highlights include the integration of AI-native workflows, such as coordinating release planning, content packaging, and partner matching through agentic workflows; global payment automation enabling agent-ready transactions; and production clearing modules providing trusted origins, authenticity, ownership, and clearing records. Additionally, audience intelligence features utilize data and trend videos to generate personalized recommendations.

The product suite includes:

• Pacer: A music career operating system that uses AI agents to handle release planning, playlist promotion, and distribution strategies.
• KORUS: An interactive music remix platform that supports collaboration between artists and fans.
• KOR Hubs: A creator community platform for selling stem packs, hosting remix contests, and courses.
• VRSNS: A content generation and reuse platform that aids in content production across social platforms.
• Streamline: A creative intelligence platform providing data-driven viral content recommendations.

*Source: * KOR Protocol Official X Platform

These products aim to connect emerging talents with record labels, agencies, brands, and communities.

Recent activities include expanding licensed music and entertainment IP supply to serve AI-native products, deepening agreements and product stacks, and attracting more creators, rights holders, and developers. The project plans to advance token launches and strengthen integration with media and technology partners.

In terms of progress, KOR has partnered with Beatport to run an artist-fan collaboration model, transforming licensed stems into "Artist DNA" for fans to remix and own; integrated KOR Player with KDDI to support the distribution of generative AI music in AR and the metaverse; and collaborated with other partners such as Darewise Entertainment, OPAL Protocol, and Motorverse. Partners also include Black Mirror, Imogen Heap, mau5trap, Banijay Group, and others.

In market expansion, KOR focuses on music, media, and technology companies, expanding into global payment tracks and cross-platform distribution, covering a range from independent creators to large franchises.

Ecosystem Progress and Competitive Analysis

The IP collaboration list includes Banijay Group, Beatport, KDDI, mau5trap label, the holder of the "Black Mirror" IP, and several Grammy-winning musicians; strategic ecosystem partners include Web2 gaming companies and Web3 public chain projects like Niantic and Camp Network. The market expansion strategy primarily targets the entertainment markets in Europe and the United States while simultaneously conducting cross-blockchain ecosystem collaborations, securing strategic investments from Solana and Avalanche, with protocol technology supporting cross-chain IP data reading without forcing users to migrate to an independent public chain. The commercialization path prioritizes the music sector, with plans to gradually expand into series IP, offline interactive experiences, and AR content licensing scenarios.

Currently, in the Web3 sector, Story Protocol is the most direct competitor, both targeting the IP on-chain track in the AI era, but with significant distinctions in their underlying approaches:

• Story Protocol: Focuses on building its own Layer1 public chain, aiming to create an independent IP ecosystem, completed a $80 million Series B funding round in 2024, with a valuation of $2.25 billion, emphasizing the construction of underlying IP native protocol standards; the project's native token $IP is set to launch in October 2025, and as of early July 2026, the token's circulating market value remains in the range of $300-400 million, significantly retracting from the early-stage primary market valuation of $2.25 billion.
• KOR Protocol: Chooses to rely on the existing Ethereum Layer2 Base for deployment, not building an independent underlying blockchain, prioritizing providing quickly accessible SaaS-level copyright tools to existing creators and entertainment companies, lowering the entry threshold for commercialization, and achieving revenue realization more rapidly, forming a differentiated advantage compared to competitors.

In addition, other market participants include platforms focusing on NFT rights confirmation for artworks and Web3 music streaming projects, but most products only cover single asset categories. KOR Protocol's differentiated positioning lies in its compatibility with music, long and short video IPs, and interactive derivative content, bridging AI commercial licensing scenarios.

Currently, the common challenges in the sector include: the willingness of traditional large copyright institutions to go on-chain still needs to be cultivated; digital copyright laws and regulations across countries are not yet unified; and the commercial model for licensing AI training materials is still in the early exploratory stage.

Token Economics and Ecosystem Incentive System

According to project disclosures, the ecosystem's native token $KOR is planned as a functional token for the protocol, with primary uses including:

• Serving as a fee medium when developers call the KOR SDK, AI engine, and on-chain rights confirmation services;
• Ecosystem governance, proposing votes on protocol authorization standards, fee rules, and ecosystem incentive pool allocations;
• IP holders and creators can stake tokens to gain ecosystem traffic support and priority display rights;
• Incentivizing early creators, developers, and node partners.

The project has not yet disclosed specific total token supply, allocation ratios, unlocking timelines, or public/private offering details, with related plans to be gradually disclosed as the token launch progresses. Additionally, the protocol supports third-party IPs to issue independent fan tokens (e.g., MIRROR), with third-party tokens operating on the KOR infrastructure but not belonging to the native KOR token system.

KOR Protocol has established an off-chain points incentive system (official entry: https://rewards.korprotocol.io/), which includes two core modules: KOR ID and KOR Score, serving as important bases for users to obtain potential future rights in the ecosystem.

* **KOR ID** is the unique user identity account in the ecosystem, with a single ID capable of binding multiple wallets. The financing data shows that 1 million registrations represent the cumulative number of KOR IDs, while 400,000 connected wallets include duplicate bindings and do not represent independent user counts. * **KOR Score** is the current core ecological contribution score, derived from the early KOR Points, which has been unified and migrated; the old points system has been discontinued. Users can accumulate scores through tasks, creation, invitations, and holding NFTs.

KOR Score serves as a reference certificate for ecological contributions, and the market expects it to be used for future token distribution, but the official has not disclosed redemption rules or snapshot timings, with no rigid rights commitments, leading to uncertainty.

Sector Development Outlook and Core Risk Alerts

In summary, KOR Protocol has further solidified its core position in the AI era's creative asset on-chain infrastructure sector through the $7.5 million Series A funding, top-tier capital backing, and leading entertainment IP resource reserves. The project has abandoned the heavy asset model of developing underlying public chains, relying on Base L2 for rapid commercialization applications, using SaaS-level tools to lower the on-chain access threshold for traditional creators and entertainment institutions, prioritizing revenue realization, and forming a differentiated advantage compared to competitors. With the subsequent token ecosystem launch, continuous expansion of IP collaboration scenarios, and improvement of the AI creation authorization system, the project is expected to continue deepening its efforts in the AI entertainment Web3 sector, further bridging the full-chain closed loop of creative asset confirmation, authorization, transaction, and revenue sharing.

Considering the current industry situation, the project's core risks are concentrated on the overall valuation correction and narrative cooling of the IP+AI entertainment sector, rather than issues related to token issuance rhythm, specifically reflected in three points:

First, the overall valuation bubble in the sector has been cleared, and the market continues to weaken. Since 2026, tokens in the IP rights confirmation and AI entertainment sector, including Story Protocol (IP), have generally experienced deep corrections, with the market having completed the early high narrative valuation re-pricing for "IP on-chain, AI authorization." Funds are gradually retreating from thematic speculation, focusing more on real cash flow and institutional collaborations, leading to overall sector Beta weakening and suppressing the project's subsequent valuation space.

Second, the industry's landing conversion rate is low, and there are risks of overdrawn commercialization narratives. Currently, the AI copyright compliance system has not been established, and traditional entertainment IP holders are conservative about the commercialization landing of on-chain rights confirmation and AI secondary authorization. Most IP on-chain projects remain at the user accumulation and cooperation announcement stage, making it difficult to form scalable, reusable profit models, with a long-term structural risk of "heat exceeding landing."

Third, there are historical security public opinion risks. On October 12, 2024, the project experienced an official X account hacking incident, where the attacker hijacked the account to post phishing links to lure users into authorizing assets. Although this incident did not cause vulnerabilities in the protocol contracts, nor did it result in the theft of the project treasury or users' on-chain assets, it exposed the project's social media operation security shortcomings, which could easily trigger a trust crisis among users and short-term public opinion fluctuations.