SY Lee, co-founder of US-based internet novel platform Radish Fiction Inc., first rose to prominence in 2021 when Kakao Leisure Corp., a unit of South Korea’s largest cellular platform operator, acquired the company for about 500 billion gained ($375 million), simply 5 years after its launch.
The serial entrepreneur ventured into a brand new frontier the next 12 months, founding Data Community, a Silicon Valley-based AI data infrastructure startup. He later launched Hint in June this 12 months, an on-chain registry for rights-cleared AI coaching data.
In October, he offered the 2 ventures to the Sui Basis, a worldwide blockchain challenge created by former members of Meta Platforms Inc.’s Diem digital foreign money initiative, in a deal valued at $30 million.
The acquisition values Data Basis, comprised of Data Community and Hint, at about 300 billion gained ($224 million). Sui’s personal enterprise worth is estimated at round 17 trillion gained, together with potential share dilution.
Hint information the origin of every contribution, tracks related utilization rights and automates cost settlement to contributors. Data Community operates the infrastructure that helps these capabilities.
IMPLICATIONS BEYOND EXIT
The transaction marks greater than one other profitable startup exit for Lee. It has broader implications within the quickly evolving AI coaching data business.
Via the acquisition, Data Community and Hint grow to be a part of the Sui ecosystem, alongside Sui and Walrus, making a vertically built-in framework that mixes data storage, entry management, possession monitoring and provenance administration inside a single system.
Walrus is a decentralized storage protocol designed to retailer and encrypt giant recordsdata, whereas offering applied sciences for entry management and verifiable computation.
Sui and Walrus will deal with safe storage and permissions administration, guaranteeing that solely approved customers can entry data.
Hint will complement these capabilities by recording data provenance, person consent and compensation flows.
“Via this integration, storage (Walrus), entry management and possession (Sui), provenance, licensing and settlement (Hint) are all related inside a single ecosystem,” Lee informed The Korea Financial Every day in a written interview.
“So far as we all know, that is the primary community to course of this whole cycle inside a single ecosystem.”
A lot of the processes had been scattered. Sometimes, the unique recordsdata had been saved within the cloud or on separate storage methods. Provenance information, licensing and settlement processes had been dealt with on totally different blockchains or off-chain methods.
RACE FOR REAL-WORLD DATA
For Sui, the deal is about greater than infrastructure integration. It gives entry to a rising pool of real-world data sourced straight from people, a class more and more coveted by AI builders, autonomous driving firms and robotics companies.
Such data, nonetheless, has grow to be more durable to acquire amid stricter privateness rules, together with South Korea’s Private Info Safety Act and the European Union’s AI Act. These legal guidelines govern how private info is collected, used, saved and deleted.
“The following era of AI fashions is constrained by entry to real-world data,” Sui mentioned in a press release launched in October.
“The data that comes subsequent have to be sourced from folks, with consent and with provenance that regulators and authorized groups will settle for.”
Sui mentioned Hint provides a flagship provide of rights-cleared data, leading to “stronger provenance ensures and tamper proof.”
Hint has registered greater than 250 million data contributions and now processes greater than 3 million receipts per day on common.
Examples of the dataset vary from a nurse describing a affected person’s in a single day situation in her personal phrases to dashcam footage of a wet commute and movies capturing a manufacturing unit technician diagnosing tools faults.
Such datasets are more and more considered as a crucial aggressive benefit for frontier AI builders.
BUILDING TRUST THROUGH TRACE
Earlier than licensing data to frontier AI labs and robotics firms, every software obtains consent from contributors relating to how their info will probably be used and the way they are going to be compensated.
They then report provenance and rights info by way of Hint, making a verifiable report of every contribution.
“Our expertise reveals that persons are keen to contribute data once they clearly perceive how it is going to be used and obtain truthful compensation in return,” mentioned Lee, a South Korean-born Oxford graduate.
“Acquiring consent was by no means the toughest half. The larger problem was proving that consent in a while and Hint was constructed particularly to unravel that drawback.”
Hint at present consists of about 545,000 members throughout 162 international locations, with 99.8% of all information linked to verified accounts.
Its ecosystem consists of Kled, a decentralized market for rights-cleared AI coaching data, in addition to the crowdsourced data assortment platform Numo and the note-taking platform Otter.
Hint entered the highest 20 blockchains by payment era inside weeks of its launch.
“Coaching data is crucial for constantly increasing the frontier and ensuring it’s traceable, auditable and cleared for use is simply as vital for AI security as it’s for data high quality,” mentioned Andrea Muttoni, chief government of DATA Basis.
LEE’S NEXT CHAPTER: HUMAN BEHAVIOR DATA
Following the transaction with Sui, Lee will stay chairman and chief technique officer of Poseidon, a startup he based in 2025 to gather human behavioral data to coach robots and autonomous methods.
Backed by enterprise capital agency Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Poseidon in July started accumulating data in South Korea by way of a partnership with Toss, the Korean fintech platform with greater than 30 million customers.
Poseidon is already licensing datasets to frontier AI labs and robotics companies. It’s now anticipated to grow to be each a strategic associate and a data provider throughout the Sui ecosystem.
The data it gathers may have its provenance recorded by way of Hint, whereas storage and entry administration will probably be dealt with by way of Sui and Walrus.
Poseidon was established by PIP Labs, a Silicon Valley-based startup incubator additionally based by Lee. It beforehand launched Story Protocol, the predecessor of Data Community.
PIP Labs additionally obtained backing from a16z, which has participated in PIP Labs’s funding rounds, together with main the company’s $80 million Series B round in 2024.
WHO IS SY LEE?
— Graduated from the College of Oxford, UK, and served as the primary Asian president of the Oxford Union
— Based Byline, a crowdfunded unbiased journalism platform, in 2016 earlier than pivoting the enterprise to Radish, a cellular internet novel platform backed by SoftBank Ventures Asia and Kakao Web page Corp.
— Offered Radish to Kakao Leisure Corp. for 500 billion gained in 2021
— Based mental property platform Story and secured funding from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and different enterprise capital companies, earlier than reworking the enterprise into the DATA Community
— Named a “Younger International Chief” by the World Financial Discussion board (WEF) in 2026
— Offered the DATA Basis, together with Data Community and Hint, to Sui Basis in 2026 at a valuation within the 300 billion gained vary
— Serves as chief technique officer and chairman of the board at Poseidon and as a strategic advisor to the Sui Basis
