Former Disney CEO Bob Iger revealed his joining the board of directors of ‘Genies’ 3D avatar startup. The company is overwhelmingly involved in the metaverse space and Web 3 projects.
LA-based Genies was founded in 2017 and its mobile app allows users to create their own custom 3D digital avatars for social media profiles and now ultimately to explore the metaverse.
Genesis co-founder and CEO Akash Nigam, 29, spoke on Iger’s joining “Can’t think of a better creative and product thinker than Bob to collaborate with.”
Apart from his joining, Bob Iger will also invest an undisclosed amount into Genies.
“I’ve always been drawn to the intersection between technology and art, and Genies provides unique and compelling opportunities to harness the power of that combination to enable new forms of creativity, expression and communication,” said Iger, who has spent more than a decade in Disney.
Genies has raised a total of $100 million in funding from venture capital backers like Bond and Breyer Capital. It also teamed up with brands like Gucci on branded digital items and has launched a marketplace for digital accessory NFTs.
Genies got immersive popularity in the 5 years span through its connection with celebrities such as Rihanna, Lil Nas X, Justin Bieber, Cardi B, Shawn Mendes. and Jennifer Lopez.
The company also owns a 90% share of the celebrity market avatar along with serving NFTs services to its clients including Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group.
The company expects Iger’s contribution to take it to the next level in the digital world and create an “avatar ecosystem”. Users will be able to customize their avatars with any digital fashion line and can interact in the virtual world with other avatars.
Bob Iger left Disney’s CEO position in 2020 and said goodbye to Disney’s board at the end of 2021. All in all, he served in Disney for more than 15 years. However, he gave many hints about his interest in the evolution of the internet and metaverse.
He stated that in the next few years, there will be multiple digital worlds to explore and digital avatars will play a crucial role to join this fascinating experience.
“I talk about democratization. It’ll be dispersed,” he said. “You may have an avatar, but you’ll go all over the place. And I think that it’s likely to be developed into something real as an experience.”
Recently, Disney also appointed veteran executive Mike White as a Senior VP to lead the Studio’s metav
Disney has been also stepping into metaverse projects for which the company recently hired veteran executive Mike White as a Senior VP of the project.
Not just that, Walt Disney is rumored to acquire the largest NFT collection according to CEO of Outlier Ventures Jamie Burke who said that if it happens (we are still guessing about the potential collection), it would be the “biggest deal to date” for the industry.
