Tonk Labs
Entrepreneur First '23London, GB Β· Founded 2023 Β· 2 known investors
Tonk builds a portable data layer and memory primitives for shared, structured knowledge that people and their software tools can query and reason over together. Its releases include "carry," a persistent memory layer for structured, queryable data.
Also known as Accessor Labs Limited Β· Tonk Β· TONK LABS LIMITED
Founders & leadership
Tonk Labs was founded in 2023 by Gavin Owens and Harry Kingdon.
Investors Β· 2
Company profile
researched Aug 2026Tonk Labs is a London-headquartered software company developing what it describes as a knowledge layer for collective intelligence: a portable data substrate intended to let people and their software tools work over shared, structured knowledge. Its publicly listed release is "carry," a persistent memory layer for structured, queryable data, with a "Tonk network" β described as software that is small, easily shared and local to the user β listed as coming soon [0]. The company presents itself as a globally distributed laboratory building primitives for shared knowledge, with a stated mission of an Internet owned by the people who use it [0].
Engineering updates published by the company describe a large refactor to integrate Dialog DB directly into Tonk. Recent work includes a space crate with WASM support via wasm-bindgen, an access control service handling service DID and keypair management, UCAN-based capability verification, R2 pre-signed URL generation, Blake3 addressing with SHA256 integrity checks, and a minimum viable Tonk UI. On the Dialog DB side, the team shipped TypeScript bindings for dialog-artifacts, REST, S3, file-system and IndexedDB storage backends, an artifact system with causality tracking and persisted revisions, a combined artifact/query engine with ECS-style queries, universal fat-key indexes, columnar encoding, CSV import/export, a React hook, transactional memory, tree diffing for sparse replication, and UCAN-based S3 authorization. The project switched to the MPL 2.0 license and renamed its crate prefix from "x-" to "dialog-" [1].
Third-party listings characterise the company in varying terms: one careers platform describes it as a next-generation backend for AI-assisted coding and a decentralised data network giving users control over their own data [3], while a London startup directory describes a command-line interface that ingests files, notes and web data so developers can generate dashboards and agents without backend setup [5].
Founding story
The legal entity, TONK LABS LIMITED, was incorporated in England on 23 February 2023 under the name ACCESSOR LABS LIMITED, adopting the Tonk Labs name on 15 September 2023 [2]. Gavin Davis Owens and Harry Kingdon were appointed directors on the incorporation date and both were registered as persons with significant control from that date [4][6]. External profiles describe Kingdon as a repeat founder with roughly a decade of experience across technology and media, including US big tech, UK startups and Cambridge University, and Owens as a founder from Silicon Valley with one exit to Airbnb, a background in distributed systems and applied cryptography, and prior machine-learning work at Yahoo [3].
Traction
Publicly verifiable traction is limited: one release (carry) is listed on the site alongside a forthcoming Tonk network product [0], an active open-source development cadence is documented through changelogs and pull-request-level updates [1], and a careers listing places headcount at 1-20 employees [3]. No customer, revenue or usage figures are disclosed in the available sources.
Latest developments
The most recent engineering update describes an in-progress large refactor integrating Dialog DB directly into Tonk, adding a space crate with WASM support, a stateless access control service with UCAN verification and R2 pre-signed URLs, and a minimum viable Tonk UI; the project also standardised on nixfmt, added Cachix binary caching, set up a stable publish branch, and switched to the MPL 2.0 license [1]. On the corporate side, Harry Kingdon resigned as director in December 2025 and ceased as a PSC in January 2026, consolidating control with Gavin Davis Owens [4][6].
βΈFull profile β market position, technology, go-to-market, geography, history, risks & controversies
Market position
Positioned by third parties as a seed-stage London deep-tech startup at the intersection of AI, crypto/Web3 and privacy [3][5], competing conceptually with platform-centric data infrastructure by offering user-controlled, local-first alternatives [3].
The company frames its data substrate as portable and local to the user rather than platform-hosted, emphasising software that is small and easily shared and an Internet that belongs to its inhabitants [0]. Technically, this is expressed through capability-based (UCAN) authorization, content addressing, local storage backends including IndexedDB and file system, and sparse replication with tree diffing, allowing data to sync without a central platform holding it [1].
Technology
The stack combines Tonk with Dialog DB, an artifact/query system written largely in Rust with WASM and TypeScript bindings. Documented components include content addressing with Blake3 and SHA256 integrity checks, UCAN capability-based authorization with service and space DIDs, pluggable storage backends (REST, S3/R2, file system, IndexedDB), serde-based serialization with Brotli compression, a query engine with ECS-style queries, universal fat-key indexes with full datum storage, columnar encoding, causality tracking and vector-clock-style divergence handling, transactional memory, and tree diffing/patching for sparse replication with novelty detection. Build and CI tooling uses Nix, Crane, Cachix and Radicle CI [1]. Externally the approach is described as local-first and decentralised, giving users control over their own data [0][3].
Go-to-market
The company distributes work openly through GitHub and publishes a public roadmap, engineering updates and changelogs, and invites users to a Discord community; it also recruits publicly for both technical and non-technical roles [0]. Components of the stack are released as open source under the MPL 2.0 license, with TypeScript/npm packages and a React hook for web integration [1].
Developers and technical users building shared or personal software, agents and dashboards over their own data, according to third-party descriptions of a code-first, CLI-driven workflow [5] and a backend for AI-assisted coding [3]. One careers listing categorises the company as B2C [3].
Geography
Registered office and correspondence address at 64 Nile Street, London N1 7SR, England [2][4][6], with a careers listing giving the headquarters as Farringdon/Clerkenwell, London, and offering some remote flexibility [3]. The company describes itself as a globally distributed laboratory [0].
History
Incorporated in February 2023 as Accessor Labs Limited and renamed Tonk Labs Limited in September 2023 [2]. A $3.5m convertible round was reported in January 2024 and is listed as the company's only round and total funding to date [3]. Co-founder Harry Kingdon, listed externally as Co-Founder & CEO [3], resigned as a director on 8 December 2025 and ceased to be a person with significant control on 12 January 2026, leaving Gavin Davis Owens as the sole active director and sole PSC with 75% or more of shares and voting rights [4][6]. Product work has since centred on integrating Dialog DB into the Tonk codebase and shipping the carry memory layer [0][1].
Risks & controversies
Key-person and governance concentration: the co-founder listed externally as CEO resigned as a director and ceased to be a person with significant control, leaving a single director holding 75% or more of shares and voting rights [3][4][6]. Funding disclosed publicly is limited to a single $3.5m convertible round from January 2024 [3], and the product remains early, with core capabilities described as unreleased or in refactor [0][1]. Public descriptions of what the company does differ materially across sources, ranging from a backend for AI-assisted coding to a CLI for data-driven app generation [3][5].
Compiled by commissioned research from 8 cited public sources β announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed β not independently audited.
Timeline Β· 7
launches, deals, and filingsHarry Kingdon, notified as a PSC on 23 February 2023 holding more than 25% but not more than 50% of shares and voting rights, ceased on 12 January 2026. Gavin Davis Owens remains the sole active PSC with 75% or more of shares and voting rights and the right to appoint or remove directors.
An engineering update reports a large refactor to integrate Dialog DB directly into Tonk, including a new WASM-capable space crate, an access control service using UCAN capability verification, service DID/keypair management, R2 pre-signed URLs, Blake3 addressing with SHA256 integrity checks, and a minimum viable Tonk UI. Dialog DB work included TypeScript bindings, REST/S3/filesystem/IndexedDB storage backends, a query engine, universal indexes, CSV import/export, transactional memory, tree diffing for sparse replication, and a switch to the MPL 2.0 license.
The company website lists "carry", described as a persistent memory layer for structured, queryable data, under recent releases, with a "Tonk network" product listed as coming soon.
Companies House records Harry Kingdon, appointed director on 23 February 2023, as having resigned on 8 December 2025. Gavin Davis Owens remains an active director.
A single reported funding round of $3.5m on a convertible instrument, listed as the company's total funding to date.
$3.5M source β
Companies House records the previous company name ACCESSOR LABS LIMITED as used from 23 February 2023 until 15 September 2023.
The company was incorporated on 23 February 2023 under company number 14685404 with the name ACCESSOR LABS LIMITED, registered at 64 Nile Street, London N1 7SR, under SIC code 62012 (business and domestic software development). Gavin Davis Owens and Harry Kingdon were both appointed directors on the same date.
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
Companies House Β· registry record
View on Companies House β- Registered name
- TONK LABS LIMITED
- Company number
- 14685404
- Status
- Active
- Company type
- Private limited company
- Incorporated
- 23 Feb 2023
- Registered office
- 64 Nile Street, London, N1 7SR
- Nature of business (SIC)
- 62012 β Business and domestic software development
- Previous names
- ACCESSOR LABS LIMITED (2023β2023)
- Accounts
- last made up to 28 Feb 2025 Β· next due 30 Nov 2026
- Confirmation statement
- last made up to 22 Feb 2026 Β· next due 8 Mar 2027
Current officers Β· 1
- Gavin Davis Owens β director, appointed 23 Feb 2023
Source: Companies House public register Β· retrieved 23 Aug 2026. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
βΈResearch sources Β· 8
primary sources listed
- Tonk Labstonk.xyz Β· web
8 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Tonk Labs do?
- London-based Tonk Labs builds a portable, local-first data layer and memory primitives for shared, queryable knowledge.
- Who founded Tonk Labs?
- Tonk Labs was founded by Gavin Owens, Harry Kingdon in 2023.
- Who are Tonk Labs's investors?
- Tonk Labs's investors include Electric Capital, Entrepreneur First.
- Where is Tonk Labs headquartered?
- Tonk Labs is headquartered in London, GB.