In the late 1990s, Napster revolutionized music sharing but did so without compensating artists. The advent of the iPod and iTunes transformed the industry by ensuring artists got paid for their digital content. Fast forward to today, and similar issues arise as companies scrape online content to train large language models without permission. Enter Dappier, an early-stage startup determined to ensure publishers are compensated when their content is used.
Dappier recently announced a $2M seed round, launching a marketplace where publishers set prices for using their content in model-training. The company’s co-founder and CEO, Dan Goikhman, describes Dappier as a “monetization stack for the emerging AI internet.” This platform provides a new way for publishers and data owners to get paid for the reuse of their content by AI agents and platforms worldwide.
“Our goal is to help media companies and information providers monetize their content as it’s being leveraged by emerging AI agents and platforms all around the world,” Goikhman said. “The idea basically is, how do you create a payment infrastructure for content as it’s distributed?”
Creating a Fair Payment Infrastructure
Goikhman and his co-founders saw an opportunity in how media owners reacted to unauthorized content scraping by companies like OpenAI. Traditionally, media owners either sued or negotiated broad licensing deals. Dappier aims to offer a better solution: a transactional marketplace where content can be licensed on a per-query basis or monetized through ad support.
Dappier allows customers to connect to a content store via an RSS feed and use that content to build models using retrieval-augmented generation (RAG). Publications can then sell access to these models through the marketplace by setting prices, similar to how CPM ad rates are determined. Additionally, they can explore other monetization strategies, such as offering an AI-powered search engine as a premium service.
This new approach offers publishers an alternative revenue stream, particularly as they struggle with declining website advertising revenue. It’s not just major publications that stand to benefit; individuals and small group newsletter publishers can also find new ways to monetize their content. Dappier has initiated conversations with newsletter platforms to explore partnerships that capitalize on this new monetization method.
Financial Backing and Future Prospects
Dappier’s recent $2 million seed round was led by Silverton Partners, based in Austin, Texas, where Dappier is also headquartered. This funding will help its mission to provide a fair way for creators to profit as people use their work.
By establishing a marketplace for content monetization, Dappier is addressing a critical gap in the AI and publishing industries. As AI continues to evolve, ensuring that content creators are fairly compensated for their contributions will become increasingly important. Dappier’s innovative approach could set a new standard for how digital content is valued and used in this AI age.
