Quick pick up:
- Users can purchase digital wearables from The Warehouse to dress up their digital avatars.
- Genies has selected a group of creatives to design the first set of collections on the platform.
- Users can also customize their purchases with in-app tools.
Digital avatar startup Genies has officially launched its NFT marketplace for digital wearables, The Warehouse. Previously accessible only to an invitation-only beta user group in December of last year, The Warehouse is now available to the public.
Users can now access the marketplace through the Genies Studio app to create their own avatars and purchase digital wearables.
Genies has selected a group of creators to design the first set of collectibles on the platform, which will be sold as NFT. One of the company’s first collaborators is photographer and influencer Tati Bruening, who has 327,000 followers on Instagram.
Creators will retain the intellectual property rights to their designs and each time the item is resold, the creator will receive a cut of the revenue while Genies takes a 5% cut of each sale.
Users can also customize the digital devices they have purchased from The Warehouse with the in-app tools.
Speaking to TechCrunch, Genies CEO Akash Nigam explained: “Creators will be selling their avatar mods and the ones they’ve customized over the last couple of months. And when they sell – let’s say someone sells like 100 items, and let’s say if a fan or follower or someone within the community decides to buy it for their avatar, they also now have the rights to be able to modify it or DIY within the studio platform, so they can use the tools and create a derivative collection, and then sell the derivative fashion line at The Warehouse.”
While Genies isn’t the only platform that helps people create their own digital identity with avatars, it has made a name for itself with a number of celebrity partnerships including Justin Bieber, Rihanna, Shawn Mendes and Migos through Universal Music Group.
Former Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger personally invested in Genies and took a seat on the company’s board in March. The following month, the company achieved unicorn status with $150 million in funding led by Silver Lake.
In the initial stages of The Warehouse’s launch, only approved creators will be able to launch and sell collections, though Genies wants to eventually allow all its users to create 1/1 fashion items for sale on the marketplace.
While the Web3 space is going through a bear market, Nigam is confident in the longevity of digital avatars as “everyone wants to exist in a 3D spatial world.” He also added that avatars give people a sense of ownership and individuality in the virtual world.
While NFTs are central to Genies’ business model, the company is targeting Gen Z “internet cool kids” who just want to create rather than native crypto users who view NFTs as a financial investment. Nigam envisions Genies expanding into a full social media network in the future.
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