What Interplanetary Shipyard does

Interplanetary Shipyard is an independent engineering collective founded in April 2024 as a Delaware nonstock corporation, spun out from Protocol Labs to serve as the technical steward of the Interplanetary Stack — the open-source web3 primitives encompassing IPFS, libp2p, and a portfolio of related implementations. The team of 8 consists of the original core maintainers and founding engineers of these protocols, with 35+ combined years of ecosystem experience. Shipyard maintains and ships the most widely deployed IPFS implementations (Kubo in Go with 50M+ Docker pulls and 80% Amino DHT prevalence; Helia in TypeScript; Boxo Go SDK), networking libraries (go-libp2p and js-libp2p, stewardship of which transitioned to the community in September 2025), gateway and routing infrastructure (Rainbow HTTP gateway, Someguy delegated routing, the IPFS HTTP Gateway Network processing 1B+ weekly requests across 11M unique IPs, Amino DHT bootstrappers serving 250K nodes weekly), and user-facing tools (IPFS Desktop, IPFS Companion browser extension with 65M+ users, Service Worker Gateway/inbrowser.link).

The business model is hybrid and unconventional for a software entity: the majority of funding is sourced from community contributions via GitHub Sponsors and the Open Impact Foundation, supplemented by ecosystem grants (Optimism RetroPGF) and protocol-laboratory support (Protocol Labs as anchor partner for 2024–2025). Shipyard also sells professional engineering and consulting services to teams building with IPFS and libp2p, with flexible engagement models ranging from one-time consultations to multi-year feature support agreements. Pricing is quote-based with no public tiers. The customer base spans hundreds of teams across Web3 protocols (Ethereum Foundation, Filecoin, Uniswap, Coinbase, MetaMask, Farcaster, Celestia, The Graph), enterprise software (Microsoft), and aerospace/defense (Lockheed Martin), though these logos are presented as stewardship dependents rather than paying customers.

Name

Interplanetary Shipyard

Legal name

Interplanetary Shipyard

Website

https://ipshipyard.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2024

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Interplanetary Shipyard is an independent engineering collective of 8 former Protocol Labs engineers that maintains the IPFS, libp2p, and related open-source web3 primitives underpinning Ethereum, Filecoin, Uniswap, and hundreds of other protocols, funded by community contributions, grants, and consulting services.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Remote

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales, Operations

Revenue model

1. Community Contributions / Public Goods Funding: Raising $3M in community contributions via GitHub sponsors and donations through Open Impact Foundation to sustain work as technical stewards of the Interplanetary Stack.
2. Professional Services and Consulting: Engineering and consulting services for IPFS, Libp2p, and Web3 ecosystem. Includes one-time consultations, long-term feature support, bug fixes, feature development, and spec/governance guidance. Sold via direct engagement and commercial service agreements.
3. Grants and RetroPGF: Funding from ecosystem supporters including Optimism's RetroPGF grants.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels2 records

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

Interplanetary Shipyard is an independent engineering collective that develops, maintains, and stewards the Interplanetary Stack, the open-source web3 primitives that power decentralized storage and peer-to-peer networking. The company produces reference implementations of IPFS (Kubo, Helia, Boxo) and libp2p (go-libp2p, js-libp2p), operates production gateway and routing infrastructure, and delivers direct engineering and consulting services to teams building on these protocols.

Product overview

Interplanetary Shipyard is an independent engineering collective that serves as technical steward of the Interplanetary Stack, maintaining foundational open-source web3 infrastructure. The portfolio consists of: core IPFS implementations (Kubo in Go, Helia in TypeScript/JavaScript, Boxo as Go SDK); gateway and routing infrastructure (Rainbow HTTP gateway, Someguy delegated routing, IPFS HTTP Gateway Network); libp2p networking libraries (go-libp2p, js-libp2p - both transitioned to community stewardship in 2025); user-facing tools (IPFS Desktop, IPFS Companion browser extension); browser retrieval solutions (Service Worker Gateway/inbrowser.link, Verified Fetch); developer tools (js-libp2p Inspector, ipfs-deploy-action, dnslink-action); and critical network infrastructure (Amino DHT Bootstrappers, Badbits Content Safety System, Community Content Cluster). Services include consulting for both current users and new adopters with flexible engagement models from one-time consultations to long-term partnerships.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Kubo The first and most popular IPFS implementation with broad features, 50M+ Docker pulls, and 80% prevalence in the Amino DHT. Powers server, desktop, and embedded IPFS nodes.
• Helia Lean, modular, and modern TypeScript implementation of IPFS optimized for JavaScript and browser environments. Enables IPFS functionality in web applications.
• Boxo Go SDK providing libraries to build IPFS applications and implementations. Powers Kubo, Cluster, Rainbow, and serves as the foundation for gateway implementations.
• Rainbow Performance-focused IPFS HTTP Gateway implementation designed to power ipfs.io and high-traffic gateway infrastructure with resource efficiency.
• Cluster Orchestrates IPFS daemons across multiple hosts by allocating, replicating, and tracking a global pinset across peer networks.
• Someguy Delegated routing HTTP API implementation that participates in the DHT on behalf of lightweight clients and exposes results through a simple HTTP interface.
• go-libp2p Go implementation of the libp2p networking library underpinning Ethereum, Filecoin, IPFS, and other distributed systems.
• js-libp2p JavaScript implementation of the libp2p networking library for browser and Node.js environments. Powers Helia and browser-based IPFS tools.
• Service Worker IPFS Gateway (inbrowser.link) Decentralizes IPFS Gateways by verifying hashes in the user's browser. Runs as an in-browser service worker implementing the Subdomain Gateway spec, enabling trustless content verification and offline access via inbrowser.link.
• IPFS Companion Browser extension with 65M+ users that integrates IPFS into everyday browsing via a local IPFS node for a more trustless experience.
• IPFS Desktop Desktop application running Kubo in the background with a WebUI browser-based interface. Tracks each Kubo release automatically.
• Verified Fetch (@helia/verified-fetch) TypeScript library providing a fetch()-like API for IPFS content. Works like the standard fetch() but operates on CIDs and IPFS paths with local content verification.
• js-libp2p Developer Tools (js-libp2p Inspector) Browser extension and Electron app for debugging and inspecting js-libp2p and Helia nodes in real-time during development.
• ipfs-deploy-action GitHub Action for deploying static assets to IPFS as part of CI/CD pipelines. Encapsulates best practices with local CID generation and CAR file pinning.
• dnslink-action GitHub Action for automatically updating DNSLink TXT records when CID changes. Uses a sandboxed DNS zone pattern for security.
• Drop-In Service Worker Service worker enabling hot-linked images or JSON to be served via IPFS with verification, as a drop-in replacement for direct gateway links.
• Content Safety System (Badbits) Badbits pipeline providing content moderation for gateway operators by processing reports, implementing review procedures, and maintaining a blocked CIDs list.
• Amino DHT Bootstrappers Trusted entry point nodes enabling approximately 250,000 nodes weekly to join the Amino DHT network.
• Community Content Cluster IPFS Cluster preserving essential community resources including Kubo binaries, Wikipedia datasets, and other vital community content.
• AutoTLS (via libp2p.direct) Service that automatically obtains wildcard TLS certificates for publicly dialable IPFS nodes at *.<PeerID>.libp2p.direct without DNS configuration or certificate management.
• Retrieval Check (check.ipfs.network) Diagnostic tool showing why content isn't loading, displaying which providers advertised content, whether they responded, and where the retrieval chain failed.
• Consulting Services World-class engineering and consulting specializing in IPFS, libp2p, and Web3 ecosystem. Services include troubleshooting, architecture review, custom tooling, bug fixes, and long-term feature support for both current users and new adopters.

Quantifiable outcome

• 75+ million monthly active users access IPFS through Shipyard-maintained tools
• +4 more outcomes

Named customers10 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration10 records

Feature10 records

Partnerships

Five partnerships are on record, tiered minor and core.

• CloudflareminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerEarly ecosystem supporter providing infrastructure and collaboration for IPFS gateway and web3 initiatives.
• PinataminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerPinning service provider and early ecosystem supporter. Works with Shipyard-maintained infrastructure.
• FissionminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerEarly ecosystem supporter focused on decentralized development tools and IPFS-based applications.
• CoopHiveminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerEarly ecosystem supporter and community builder for decentralized web initiatives.
• Open Impact FoundationcoreChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorProvides donation processing infrastructure for public goods funding of IPFS and libp2p maintenance. Ships can donate directly through the Open Impact Foundation.

Scale indicators6 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Broad incumbents

• Alchemy: Large-scale web3 developer platform providing node, API, and indexing infrastructure. Comparable customer base (web3 developers) and infrastructure-as-a-service business model.
• Filecoin Foundation: Governance and ecosystem steward for Filecoin, which depends on IPFS and libp2p as foundational protocols. Comparable steward-of-public-infrastructure mandate for web3 storage.
• Infura: Consensys-owned provider of blockchain/node infrastructure serving Ethereum and IPFS developers. Comparable as enterprise-facing web3 infrastructure services provider.

Emerging players

• Textile: Developer tools and APIs for decentralized storage on IPFS and Filecoin. Comparable as a niche infrastructure builder serving web3 developers.
• Ceramic Network: Decentralized data network for composable data on IPFS, targeting similar web3 developer use cases for verifiable, content-addressed storage.
• Storacha: Decentralized hot-storage network built on IPFS/Filecoin, listed by Shipyard as a customer. Comparable as a downstream consumer/builder on the IPFS stack Shipyard maintains.

Direct peers

• Fleek: Web3 infrastructure platform for hosting and deploying on IPFS; comparable in serving developers building decentralized applications atop the IPFS stack Shipyard maintains.
• ChainSafe: Web3 infrastructure engineering firm contributing to go-libp2p and broader Ethereum tooling. Comparable as a protocol engineering collective serving the same web3 ecosystem.
• Pinata: IPFS pinning service provider and ecosystem partner that operates on top of Shipyard-maintained infrastructure. Comparable target market (IPFS users) and overlapping web3 storage infrastructure focus.
• Protocol Labs: Original creator and incubator of IPFS, Filecoin, and libp2p. Direct comparability as the upstream entity from which Shipyard spun out and the anchor financial partner for 2024-2025; comparable technology stewardship mandate.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• GitHubgithub.com/sponsors/ipshipyard
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/interplanetary-shipyard

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles8 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Interplanetary Shipyard