Genies: How does an overseas company that wants to create a 3D QQ show achieve a valuation of US$1 billion?
Original Source: MetaverseHub
Original Source: MetaverseHub
Recently, Genies completed a $150 million Series C financing led by Silver Lake, with Bond, NEA, and Tamarack Global participating, with a valuation of $1 billion.So far, another unicorn company has been born in the Metaverse field.
The financing will be used to hire more engineering talent to build a metaverse platform based on custom avatars.
According to public information, Genies has completed 12 financings since its establishment, and this financing is the largest one.
In January 2017, Genies completed the $250,000 financing led by Joe Montana and participated by Al Dhow Capital, which was the support Genies received in the early stages of development.
Subsequently, Genies has successively completed Series A financing and several venture capital investments. As of May 2021, the cumulative financing amount is 42.8 million US dollars (excluding undisclosed).
During the period, Genies also reached a cooperation with Bandai Namco, a well-known Japanese game company, and received a US$3 million investment from it to launch a limited edition digital equipment NFT series.
In May 2021, Genies completed a $65 million Series B round of financing led by Bond, with participation from Coinbase Ventures and Foundation Capital.At the beginning of 2022, Genies received two financings
, one is the C round of financing mentioned above, and the other is an investment from Disney CEO Robert Iger, the amount has not been disclosed.
Although some people still think that the metaverse is still an undetermined future, with the entry of more and more Internet giants and technology giants, perhaps we should look at the metaverse from a different perspective., Then why did this company that wanted to create a 3D QQ show become the "new darling" of many capitals and obtain such a high valuation, and what is the reason behind it?
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Who are Genies?
Genies is a virtual avatar technology company founded in 2017. It has been developing for nearly 5 years. It was co-founded by Akash Nigam, Evan Rosenbaum, Jake Adams, and Matt Geiger. It currently has more than 100 employees.Genies uses artificial intelligence to develop a custom avatar system for users
, users can use the system to create avatars as well as personalized avatars and outfits.
Genies also has a major feature that it will track news clues from hundreds of media, and generate 10-15 emoticon templates every day based on these news and different festivals.
When users create their own avatars on Genies, they can call the generated emojis and use them on other social media.
Such personalized and interesting custom emoticons have attracted countless young people who like to follow the trend. When Genies was launched, it got 680,000 reservations from users.October 2020,Genies also launched their own 3D avatar products, and then cooperated with many European and American stars
, such as Cardi b, Rhianna, Justin Bieber, etc. Celebrity teams can publish commercial promotion photos with avatars participating in social media, and Genies also use their influence to gain huge attention.The instant popularity of Genies attracted the attention of luxury brand Gucci. After the two parties reached a cooperation, Genies allowed individual users to create their own personalized avatar for the first time
, and buy branded digital clothing to dress up their virtual avatars, and this is also the beginning of Genies' gradual transition from 2D to 3D using blockchain technology.
By launching its own 3D avatar SDK, Genies enables users to create their own native avatars and metaverse fashion avatar series, and finally completes the creation of a library of emoji avatars and a real social experience, thereby establishing a digital identity ecosystem.
Akash Nigam, CEO of Genies, believes, "This is an image that appears to allow you to create anything you want to create, anything you think of. It's like a sculpture of your personality, rather than you as a real person. Human sculpture."What's more, based on the avatars created by Genies,
Genies not only allow users to show their true self with a virtual image, but also give users complete freedom to create. As virtual avatars are one of the most important elements of the Metaverse, Genies must be one of the best ways to enter the Metaverse.
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What have the Genies accomplished?In its early days, Genies’ products were somewhat similar to 2D avatars like Snapchat’s Bitmoji. With the continuous upgrading of its products and the deepening of cooperation with brand owners,
Genies eventually grew into one of the largest avatar companies in the world.
Genies went live in December 2017, gained 680,000 pre-orders, and reached a valuation of $100 million within three days.
In 2018, Genies launched the first Genies SDK software development kit and invited Gucci to become its first global advertising partner.Genies users have access to a "Gucciwheel" where users can buy and dress their avatar in favorite clothes,
And Gucci employees can also use these avatars to show their personal style.In the less than two years that followed, Genies continued to polish its social media attributes. And in October 2020, cooperated with Unity to build its 3D avatar world,
3D launch Avatar for celebrities and mass market using Unity Software's game engine.
Genies releases Avatar and digital goods SDK, enabling users to make Genies avatar into GIFs and personalized stickers, and use them on users' websites, apps and other networks.
In November 2020, Genies reached a cooperation with Justin Bieber and Amazon Music to release the Christmas promotional song of the year. And reached a cooperation with Dapper labs to plan to integrate Genies into the Flow blockchain.almost at the same time,
Genies secures $3 million in financing from Bandai Namco for Asian expansion.
Prior to this, Genies launched GeniesMembership to customize avatars for celebrities, artists, idols and athletes. Rihann, iamcardib, JBALVIN, OffsetYRN have launched their Genies avatar.
Then Genies tried the sale of wearable digital goods for the first time in February 2021. The digital goods of Mesut Özil’s $500,000 wearable device sold out within ten minutes. Fans can collect them and decorate them on their Geniesavatar .
Soon after, Genies reached a cooperation with opensea and jointly launched NFT with Shawn Mendes.And in April 2021,
Genies launched its Discord channel, strengthening the connection with the community.
Afterwards, Genies launched the application and Drop Shop, a market that provides digital accessories and wearable devices, providing users with a personalized NFT image production platform, and cooperated with Dapper labs to launch Genies Marketplace, a market for NFT digital wearable devices.
During this period, Genies continued to expand its Genies Membership program, reached cooperation with Jake Paul, Dove Cameron, Trippie Redd, and reached a cooperation with Na Music Group to create avatars for WMG musicians.
At the same time, Genies has reached a cooperation with Giphy, an online GIF database owned by Facebook, so that Genies avatar has a wider range of application scenarios.2021,Genies has made more attempts to cooperate with celebrities and IP.
Reached cooperation with youngthug and GunnaGunna to launch skichallenge theme.
Partnered with Pac-man to launch a limited edition collection of wearable NFTs to celebrate Pac-man's 41st anniversary.
And it is constantly expanding its Genies Membership territory, reaching cooperation with Migos, Russell Westbrook, LoloZouai, jaden, NATTINATASHA, Xavi Simons, AmandaNunes, Oliver Tree, WhaleShark_Pro, Marsai Martin, Joel Corry, KIM PETRAS, Bohan.October 2021,Genies Partners with Decentraland for Metaverse Carnival
, offering avatars and an airdrop of related NFTs during the four-day celebration of music, culture and creativity.
In December 2021, Genies reached a cooperation with Universal Music Group and made only avatars for all Universal Music artists, making preparations for further entry into Hollywood.
Almost at the same time, Genies partnered with DapperLabs to launch its NFT marketplace "The Warehouse", and issued airdrop creators to be able to buy, sell and trade all digital accessories of 3D avatars in Genies, which will be minted on the Flow chain.And announced at the beginning of the new year 2022,
Each user has complete commercial rights to their avatars and wearable devices, encouraging the trade and circulation of digital collections.
With Genies collaborating with iann dior, Jadon Sancho, green bean, Timmy Trumpet and many more celebrities, "The Warehouse" launched Oasis, Hyperpunk and other series of products.
Genies will launch Genies Creator OS in February 2022, and release UGC wearable documents. Users can design and sell their unique digital goods in "The Warehouse".
At this time, Genies has become radiant.In March 2022, Genies was named the best entrepreneurial employer in the United States in 2022 by Forbes and market research company Statista.
Named one of the 10 most innovative social companies of 2022 by Fast Company.
Former Disney CEO Robert Iger joined the Genies board of directors and made a personal investment in it. Genies became the focus of heated discussions on Wall Street for a while.
On the occasion of its launch of the Tiger-themed wearable device to celebrate the Chinese New Year, Genie completed a $150 million Series C round of financing led by Silver Lake, laying a good start for 2022.
Genies wrote "your space, your rules" in a very prominent position on its official website.Since its inception, Genies has grown rapidly, creating important tools for building future avatars,
We cannot arbitrarily believe that Genies is the world's most important virtual avatar solution provider, but there is no doubt that it will occupy an important place in the field of virtual avatar.
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What business opportunity did Genies see?
Social networking is the greatest need in human behavior, and it is also one of the largest application directions of the Internet. However, the current social networking is still at the stage of mainly relying on avatars to represent us and communicate with text or voice.
The expression between people is limited by the display methods provided by Internet applications, and all our account information is controlled by Internet giants.But in the future,
Metaverse is a three-dimensional virtual world. We can express ourselves in richer ways, and avatars are the most direct way.
Virtual avatars are no longer limited to 2D pictures like avatars, but a new expression of 3D stereo, so that the avatars in the virtual world can be adjusted like real people in the real world, and the appearance and body of the avatar can be adjusted at will.
And around the virtual avatar, independent clothing on the avatar can also be derived and combined with well-known offline physical brands. For example, virtual hats of well-known fashion brands can be launched for our avatars to wear.
Another point is that virtual avatars can provide a richer way of interaction, so that we can get more realistic emotional feedback in the communication in the metaverse as if we were face to face in reality.more importantly,
In the metaverse based on the decentralized Web3, the ownership of all virtual avatars and a series of virtual items derived from the avatars belong to the user.
The user will truly feel that this virtual avatar is himself in the virtual world, and feel that he is living in the virtual world, not just playing some social games on a large Internet.
Genies saw the future of the metaverse and understood the importance of virtual avatars playing a role in it, so Genies determined its mission is to empower humans to create their own digital identity ecosystem.On the one hand, it provides users with avatar creation tools
, any individual can create and display their own avatar and the derived NFT items that can be worn on the avatar.on the other hand,Genies will also launch virtual worlds and tools to provide interactive experiences
, and the user has full commercial rights to all of them.
The work done by Genies aims to enable people to gain real freedom after entering the digital world, and everyone can control their identity in the digital world, which is exactly the necessary element for the future Metaverse.
Recently, financing news about avatars has been released frequently. As an important part of the Metaverse, avatars' performance in the capital market is also particularly noteworthy.
On December 28, 2021, Ready Player Me, the Metaverse Avatar platform that allows users to explore virtual worlds with a consistent avatar, announced that it has raised $13 million in Series A financing to expand its global team.
On January 26, 2022, IMVU received a strategic investment of US$35 million from NetEase Capital and Structural Capital.IMVU APP is a social platform for 3D virtual characters, which provides a variety of different 3D virtual scenes
, users can create their own 3D virtual characters on the platform, and use this image to make friends on the platform; users can take pictures in different scenes and share them in social circles, and the platform provides shopping functions.
On February 21, 2022, Soul Machines, an AI+3D virtual avatar assistant research and development company, recently announced the completion of a $70 million B1 round of financing.
This round of financing will be mainly used to promote digital human/virtual avatar technology and market growth, and provide interactive methods for virtual platforms such as Metaverse.On April 8, 2022, Yingmu Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. announced the completion of the Pre-A round of financing of tens of millions of yuan.This round of funds will continue to be used for team building and research and development of the underlying core technology of digital humans
The recent financing amount is generally relatively high, and we can clearly feel that the capital market attaches great importance to this direction. However, the ecological structure of virtual humans has not yet formed, and it is the stage of competition for staking land.
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Can Genies' business model be used for reference?
When we talk about whether the business model of Genies can be replicated, we need to understand what is behind the business of Genies?
And just like when we talked about digital identities in the metaverse above, there is actually a very simple logic that can be used for reference.When the Internet was just popular in 2000, why did ICQ (the world's first instant messaging software developed by the Israeli company Mirabilis in November 1996) and QQ (born in 1999) be the first to become the pioneers of this wave of networking, because they Solved a very fundamental problem
: Replicate physical identities to the Internet.
What does that mean? Before the Internet, our communication could only be achieved through mail and telephone (or pager), and the birth of the Internet brought us the foundation that everyone can be connected.
In addition to providing communication platforms, MSN and QQ also use a string of characters or QQ numbers to determine our identity on the Internet, thus solving the problem of "I am me" on the Internet.And for the metaverse,
We also need a message or character to confirm our identity in the metaverse.
But this time we can't just have a symbol or a string of numbers, but need a three-dimensional, naked-eye character, and this is the role of Genies or virtual humans.
Therefore, with this logic, when we look at the business model of Genies, it is not difficult to find that if there is ICQ overseas in the Internet age, there is QQ in China.
In the same way, now that there is a successful metaverse identity production company like Genies overseas, maybe a similar unicorn company will be born in China.From the perspective of business model, once there is a digital identity, the development of Metaverse can usher in a moment of vigorous development
, will also bring more creative ideas, which is an important reason why Genies are favored.
