Genies, the Web3 startup leading the Web3 culture by empowering individuals to create their own avatar ecosystems has just cleared a $150M Series C round led by Silver Lake, a global leader in tech investing. This investment pushes the company’s valuation to $1B, making it one of the new unicorns in town. The round also saw participation from existing investors BOND, NEA, and Tamarack Global.
Genies quite notably has a 99% celebrity avatar market share and has continued to build on its leadership position through partnerships with Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group, serving as each company’s “official avatar and digital goods NFT provider.”
The digital human avatar market
The global digital human avatar market size is expected to hit $527.58B in 2030 and experience a CAGR in revenue of 46.4% over the forecast period, according to analysts. This strong global digital human avatar market revenue growth can be attributed to the increasing efforts by customer-centric firms to provide a more emotionally engaging and immersive experience to customers.
The integration of conversational intelligence of a virtual human avatar is enabling the possibility of a scalable interaction between human beings and avatars. The use of text, voice, video, imagery, and interaction by avatars make metaverse interactions more engaging and interesting. The digital characterisation resembling human beings is revolutionizing social media, education, office meetings and gaming, just to name a few.
Genies Avatar tech
Through its Genies Avatar Creator OS, Genies is providing the tools that allow users to create their own avatars, avatar wearable fashion lines, avatar worlds, and avatar interactive experiences in web3.
Founded by Akash Nigam, Evan Rosenbaum, Jake Adams and Matt Geiger in 2017 and based in Los Angeles, Genies has been steadily setting the foundation for swift, widespread adaptation of avatars in society, business, and culture. With its newly acquired funds, Genies will increase hiring across engineering and further invest in the core technology of Genies’ avatar universe.
Genies has begun rolling out its mass consumer “avatar creator tools” to small groups via a private, invitation-only, beta which allows users at every level of technical ability to create their own Web3-native avatars, avatar fashion collections, and eventually, avatar homes and social experiences. A core pillar of Genies’ vision is the full ownership and commercialization rights of creators over their Genie avatar creations. The creators can utilize them as they wish, ranging from creating a show or movie to starting a new brand, unlocking entirely new and novel forms of creativity, expression and monetization.
Genies has also recently launched The Warehouse, an avatar ecosystem NFT marketplace which enables creators to buy, sell, and trade their avatar ecosystem creations. All of Genie’s creations are minted on Dapper Labs’ blockchain network, Flow.
Through its partnerships with Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group, Genie offers its creator services to famous artists including Justin Bieber, Migos, Cardi B, and J Balvin.
