Aria Protocol Labs Inc. and the Aria Foundation today announced that they have raised $15 million in seeds and strategic funding to expand their novel push. The round includes key participation from PolyChain, Neoclassic, The Story Foundation, and other strategic partners from Crypto, IP, and Entertainment.
Aria's approach already has a proving point of interest. In February 2025, the team launched their first IP-wrapped token $APL. This represents partial royalty rights to songs that global superstars like Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, Blackpink and BTS.
“Onchain IP is not just a creative frontier, it's financial,” said David Kostiner, co-founder and chief IP officer of Aria Protocol Labs Inc.
Scaling function
Aria places herself in addressing the challenges of growing markets. With AI-generated media and flood channels of rapid digital delivery, there is growing demand for authentic licensed materials. The platform embeds attributes, licensing, automated loyalty distribution-on-chain, allowing programmable remix licensing, automatic revenue splits, community-sorted participation and more. Fresh funding aims to expand these features across music, art, and film/TV.
“The market is finally awakening to IP as a real-world asset class,” said Sy Lee, CEO of Story. “Aria shows what is possible when historically illiquid IPs are on-chained in ways that support programmable rights. They are building the future of IP finance and creative capital.”
Aria Foundation, a Cayman-based nonprofit created to steward the protocol, supports developer grants, community initiatives, liquidity programs, and other ecosystem initiatives designed to help IP owners, creators and fans join new markets. Founded by veterans in the music industry, Aria Protocol Labs says it will continue to roll out slates of launches of additional IP tokens across creative industries.
Industry observers view funding as another indication that investors are increasingly dealing with IP, particularly music loyalty. With ARIA, the challenge is to balance liquidity, transactionality, rights management and creator protection as the company grows.
