Yakoa
Yakoa builds AI-powered digital IP protection tooling — its Creative Codex engine, Brand Protection, and Platform Protection products — serving brands, online platforms and marketplaces, creators, and trust-and-safety teams with originality detection, provenance, and licensing capabilities across image, video, audio, and 3D content.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2022
- HeadquartersSan Jose, United States
- Headcount1–10
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What Yakoa does
Yakoa, Inc. is a San Jose-headquartered, venture-backed software company that builds AI-driven tooling for digital intellectual-property protection. Founded in 2022 to address originality and attribution in an AI-native content creation environment, the company has developed the Creative Codex, a proprietary AI engine that maps how creative works evolve across the internet's content landscape — detecting originality, reconstructing creative lineage across images, video, audio, and 3D formats, and identifying licensing opportunities rather than just infringements. The Codex is reinforced by C2PA and blockchain-based tamper-proof provenance records, and the company claims scale of more than two billion indexed assets.
Its commercial offering is structured as three interconnected products: Creative Codex (the core AI engine), Brand Protection (active monitoring, takedown automation, marketplace mapping, and a 'retroactive licensing' module that converts IP violations into monetized licensed content), and Platform Protection (an API-based real-time IP firewall with NSFW filtering, spam detection, and cross-format attribution for trust-and-safety teams). Go-to-market is API-first, with self-serve developer integration via REST endpoints and SDKs in Python, Ruby, PHP, Go, Java, and .NET, layered with an enterprise sales motion targeting Trust & Safety, legal, development, and platform-leadership buyers.
The revenue model is subscription/recurring across API services, brand protection, and platform protection modules. The company has raised $4.8 million in seed funding (November 2022) led by Collab+Currency, Volt Capital, and Brevan Howard Digital, with participation from Alliance DAO, Uniswap Labs Ventures, Orange DAO, DCG, and Time Zero Capital. It operates with a remote-hybrid team of 1–10 employees distributed across the United States, Canada, Latin America, and Europe, and has signed strategic partnerships across the Web3 ecosystem (Tensor, Story Protocol, CharmVerse, BlockBar, Spice AI, IoTeX, jpnft, Curvegrid) and co-develops content-credentialing standards.
Yakoa firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Yakoa
- Legal name
- Yakoa, Inc.
- Website
- https://yakoa.io
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2022
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 1–10 employees
- Short description
- Yakoa builds AI-powered digital IP protection tooling — its Creative Codex engine, Brand Protection, and Platform Protection products — serving brands, online platforms and marketplaces, creators, and trust-and-safety teams with originality detection, provenance, and licensing capabilities across image, video, audio, and 3D content.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Yakoa industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Digital Rights Management Software
- NAICS
- Software Publishers (5132), Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (518)
- SIC
- Services-Computer Programming Services (7371), Security & Commodity Brokers, Dealers, Exchanges & Services (6200)
- akta.pro primary industry
- RWA Oracles, Data Attestation & Proof-of-Reserve/Proof-of-Collateral (FSADAEAM)
- akta.pro secondary industries
- On-Chain Reputation, Identity & Attestation for Governance (DID, badges, sybil resistance) (FSAPAHAF), Smart Contract Frameworks & SDKs (developer kits, templates, standards) (FSAPABAB)
Keywords
Where Yakoa is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- San Jose
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices1 record
Markets served
Yakoa business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Technology or R&D, Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure, Operations
Revenue model
- API Services: API-based services for content scanning, originality detection, and IP protection. Appears to follow a consumption/subscription model based on API usage.
- Brand Protection Services: Active protection services for brands including asset monitoring, marketplace mapping, takedown automation, and reports/analytics.
- Platform Protection Services: Trust & safety services for platforms including fraud screening, NSFW filtering, spam detection, and compliance monitoring.
Go-to-market motion2 records
Distribution channels3 records
Marketing channels3 records
Yakoa product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Yakoa provides an AI-powered digital rights protection platform that helps brands, platforms, and creators detect originality, trace creative lineage, and enforce or license intellectual property at internet scale. Its core engine, Creative Codex, maps how ideas evolve across images, video, audio, and 3D content using C2PA and blockchain-verifiable credentials. The platform exposes these capabilities via API and through branded modules for active brand protection and real-time platform trust-and-safety.
Product overview
Yakoa is an AI-powered digital rights protection platform that helps brands, platforms, and creators make informed decisions about rights and attribution at internet scale. The platform consists of three interconnected products: the Creative Codex (the core AI engine that maps creative lineage and detects originality), Brand Protection (for active monitoring, takedown automation, and asset management), and Platform Protection (API-based real-time content scanning for trust and safety teams). The Creative Codex serves as the underlying intelligence layer powering both Brand and Platform Protection modules, enabling cross-format attribution across images, video, audio, and 3D content.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Products and services
- Creative Codex AI engine that maps how ideas evolve across the internet's creative landscape, detecting originality (not just copies), reconstructing creative lineage from source to latest evolution, and identifying licensing opportunities. Built on C2PA and blockchain-verifiable credentials and supports images, video, audio, and 3D formats.
- Brand Protection Active protection service for brand asset management that includes AI-detected violation review, takedown automation, management of logos, products, Web3 collections and marketing graphics, marketplace mapping for infringement tracking, reports and analytics, and a Retroactive Licensing feature that converts detected IP reuse into licensed content. Targeted at legal, innovation, and leadership teams at brands.
- Platform Protection Real-time IP firewall delivered via API for platforms and marketplaces that scans content as published to detect infringement, verify originality, and prevent abuse. Features cross-format attribution at scale, verifiable creation history with tamper-proof records, NSFW filtering, spam detection, fraud screening, and 24/7 technical and policy support with SDKs in Python, Ruby, PHP, Go, Java, and .NET.
Quantifiable outcome
- Managing over 2 billion assets across the web
Companies that use Yakoa
Customer profileSegments4 records
Ideal customer profiles3 records
Yakoa technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
AI capability8 records
Feature6 records
Yakoa partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Two partnerships are on record, tiered core.
- Story ProtocolcoreStrategic partnership with Story Protocol for end-to-end IP management. Joint system combines Yakoa's originality detection with Story's IP registration and licensing infrastructure. Three-part blog series on retroactive licensing and IP management.
- TensorcoreStrategic partnership with Tensor, a leading NFT marketplace on the Solana network. Collaboration brings together two pioneers in Web3 space for enhanced marketplace authenticity and IP protection.
Scale indicators3 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights4 records
Yakoa competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- MarqVision: AI-powered brand protection and IP enforcement platform serving brands and marketplaces. Closely comparable to Yakoa's Brand Protection and Platform Protection modules in both technology approach and target buyer.
- Pixsy: Image and content IP protection platform for creators and brands, offering automated infringement detection and takedown. Comparable to Yakoa's brand-side protection workflow and creator-focused use cases.
Broad incumbents
- Audible Magic: Long-established content identification and rights management vendor used by major platforms for audio/video fingerprinting. Overlaps with Yakoa's cross-format attribution at scale, but covers a broader traditional media portfolio.
- Digimarc: Digital watermarking and product authentication incumbent with brand-protection offerings. Comparable to Yakoa on the brand/IP protection axis but operates at much larger enterprise scale with different core technology (watermarking vs. AI lineage).
- Pex: Content ID and IP analytics platform for identifying copyrighted material across uploads. Competes with Yakoa's Platform Protection use case, especially for UGC platforms, with a broader and more mature detection footprint.
- TinEye: Reverse image search engine widely used for IP infringement detection. Overlaps with Yakoa's image attribution and originality detection but is a more narrowly-scoped tool without AI lineage or blockchain provenance.
- Red Points: AI-driven brand protection platform tackling counterfeit, piracy, and impersonation for brands and marketplaces. Direct overlap with Yakoa's Brand Protection module for traditional brand-side customers.
Emerging players
- Truepic: C2PA-aligned content authenticity and provenance startup. Directly comparable on the provenance/C2PA standards axis where Yakoa also plays, though focused more on capture-time verification than broad internet-wide lineage.
Others
- Story Protocol: Strategic partner building on-chain IP registration and programmable licensing infrastructure for Web3. Complementary rather than competitive; together the two companies form an end-to-end IP stack (detection + registration + licensing).
- OpenSea: Leading NFT marketplace and Yakoa customer/partner in the Web3 segment. Not a competitor; represents the type of platform-side buyer that drives Yakoa's Platform Protection demand.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat5 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights6 records
Customer concentration
Yakoa social profiles
Digital presenceYakoa financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Yakoa leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Yakoa funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds1 record
Investors11 records
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Yakoa M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Yakoa
What does Yakoa do?
Yakoa provides an AI-powered digital rights protection platform that helps brands, platforms, and creators detect originality, trace creative lineage, and enforce or license intellectual property at internet scale. Its core engine, Creative Codex, maps how ideas evolve across images, video, audio, and 3D content using C2PA and blockchain-verifiable credentials. The platform exposes these capabilities via API and through branded modules for active brand protection and real-time platform trust-and-safety.
Is Yakoa a public or private company?
Yakoa is a private company. It is classified as venture growth investor backed and is currently operating.
When was Yakoa founded?
Yakoa was founded in 2022. It employs 1 to 10 people.
Where is Yakoa based?
Yakoa is headquartered in San Jose, United States, in the North America region.
How does Yakoa make money?
Three revenue lines are on record. API Services are the primary driver. The others are brand Protection Services and platform Protection Services.
Who are Yakoa's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are MarqVision and Pixsy. Broad incumbents are Audible Magic, Digimarc, Pex, TinEye and Red Points. Truepic is listed as an emerging player. Others are Story Protocol and OpenSea.
Does Yakoa have an API?
Yes. Yakoa provides a REST API for content protection and IP verification. The API endpoint is https://api.yakoa.io/v0/image/services and accepts POST requests with multipart/form-data content type. It supports cross-format attribution by comparing assets (image, video, audio) against a global index of protected content. SDK samples are provided in Python, Ruby, PHP, Go, Java, and .NET. Documentation is available at docs.yakoa.io, and AI agent-specific documentation is available at docs.yakoa.io/llms.txt. Developer documentation is at docs.yakoa.io/reference/getting-started.
What industry is Yakoa in?
Yakoa's product category is Digital Rights Management Software. Its primary akta.pro industry code is FSADAEAM, RWA Oracles, Data Attestation & Proof-of-Reserve/Proof-of-Collateral, with a secondary code of FSAPAHAF, On-Chain Reputation, Identity & Attestation for Governance (DID, badges, sybil resistance). Its NAICS code is 5132 and its SIC code is 7371.