a16z supported DATA received a $30 million investment from the Sui Foundation, closing its own blockchain to migrate to Sui

According to CoinDesk, blockchain startup DATA, supported by a16z crypto and formerly known as Story Protocol, announced the closure of its own blockchain and migration to the Sui network. Previously, DATA received a $30 million investment from the Sui Foundation, which thus became the largest institutional holder of DATA Network.

DATA CEO Andrea Muttoni stated that the company spent several years trying to put intellectual property on the blockchain, raising a total of $140 million and building its own blockchain, but found that changing the global intellectual property licensing model was more difficult than expected. He mentioned that the team had previously spread their business too broadly, and subsequently rebranded to DATA Foundation in June of this year, shifting focus to the AI training data market and further concentrating on tracking the sources and rights of AI model training data.

DATA's core product, Trace, is a registration system used to record the sources of training data, the terms agreed upon by contributors, and the rights held by buyers. Partner Kled is a paid data solicitation marketplace platform, adding approximately 3 to 4 million contribution records daily. DATA also plans to migrate existing tokens to Sui on a 1:1 basis, and its existing blockchain will remain operational until the migration is complete, with holders' rights and timelines unchanged.