Genies, the virtual avatar company that makes digital cartoon-style versions of celebrities, can now count Camila Cabello, Paris Hilton and Priyanka Chopra as its latest investors, the company tells Rolling Stone.
The three women are part of Genies’ previously closed $65 million funding round led by venture capitalist Mary Meeker, and Genies CEO and founder Akash Nigam says they represent a portion of the round earmarked for female investors, as Genies looks to be more inclusive in both its investment and company makeup. (Nigam declined to disclose how much the three individually invested.)
Cabello, Hilton and Chopra signed on quickly as the funding round closed within two weeks, and Nigam says Hilton in particular gravitated toward Genies, given her focus on the crypto space and Genies’ place within selling NFTs. All three will have their own Genies developed as well.
Genies develops digital avatars that have artists’ likenesses — and those avatars help advertise and sell digital wearables and collectables fans can buy, typically as crypto-backed NFTs. To date, the company has made avatars for artists including Migos, Shawn Mendes, J Balvin, Justin Bieber, 24KGoldn, Young Thug and Gunna. Genies will also soon be developing avatars for a wider slate of music artists, after it closed a deal earlier this year with Warner Music Group to develop avatars and NFTs for the label’s artists.
The demand for digital merchandise has skyrocketed in recent years — most prominently through video games like Fortnite — where players want to use digital clothes and flares to customize the characters they play. NFTs have the potential to put more value on those types of digital goods since they’re scarce and re-sellable. Digital and collectables will ultimately show their true value as people get more immersed online and metaverses — digital online universes where people can congregate, buy products, play games and do other activities they can do in person now — get more immersive. Music in particular has been an early case study of metaverses’ potential, as artists like Travis Scott and Lil Nas X take to Fortnite and Roblox (companies that both have shown interest in the metaverse) to perform virtual online concerts.
Right now, Genies develops avatars for celebrities to evangelize the product, but further down the line, the goal is for anyone to have their own Genie and be able to sell their own user-generated NFT products. Nigam also wants his Genies to be able to go into metaverses.
Genies is currently readying the launch of its own marketplace and app in partnership with investor Dapper Labs, the blockchain company behind popular pro basketball NFT marketplace NBA Top Shot. That will launch later in the fall or winter.
NFTs have been a buzzy finance story of 2021, thanks to music artists like 3LAU alongside visual artists such as Beeple making millions of dollars selling them. The format quickly spawned a gold rush, but the market has grown saturated as more looked to cash in, and sales have waned in recent months. Even though the boom has stopped, Nigam says, the recent trend has introduced NFTs to a wide swath of users and laid the groundwork to evangelizing them more.
“Most people who learned about NFTs most recently see them as art pieces but that isn’t it, it’s a concept of authenticating true ownership on the internet,” he says. “If you believe we’re going to be more immersed on the internet, you see the value in that. I’d say most people would get a bit of a gut check if they didn’t think we were going heavier online. [The past few months] gave exposure to this world and lifted people’s heads to a space that’s occurring and could be powerful.”
Nigam says that as his company is growing, it’s pushing to shift from being a 60 percent male company to having a majority-women workforce, including at the senior executive level, which Genies is currently hiring for. “We believe that females run culture, and for a product like avatars, that require people to have a pulse on what’s going on in the world and on consumer behaviors, we want to be a predominantly female company,” he says. “That ranges from the VP and executive level to our cap table, which is where Priyanka, Camila and Paris come in. Avatars are about inclusivity, and the ability for diversity in culture to have an impact on product for consumers is important to us.”
Rise Against have released a new single, ‘Nod’, their first new music since 2022.
The new track kicks off the punk band’s “inspired next chapter” and was produced by Catherine Marks. “I swear to God this can’t wait,” vocalist and lyricist Tim McIlrath sings at the top of the song’s chorus. “Not one more minute, one more day.”
“Nod is about the solace we find in community,” said McIlrath in a press release. “It’s about the comfort in knowing that we are not alone. This comfort can temper our anger and our frustration, at least temporarily.”
‘Nod’ follows the band’s 2021 album ‘Nowhere Generation’. It was followed by an EP titled ‘Nowhere Sessions’ which included live versions of songs from the album.
Tracks such as ‘Talking To Ourselves’, ‘Broken Dreams, Inc.’ and the LP’s titular single were re-imagined as live recordings, as well as a cut of their 2008 song ‘Savior’ and covers of Misfits‘ ‘Hybrid Moments’ and Creedence Clearwater Revival‘s ‘Fortunate Son’.
Check out ‘Nod’ below:
the release of ‘Nod’ arrives just before Rise Against head out on a UK and European tour alongside L.S. Dunes and Sondaschule.
They’ll kick off the shows on January 28 in Dublin, before heading to Belfast on 29. Then, in February, they’ll head to Paris, Brussels, Berlin, Zurich and more, before wrapping up the tour in Vienna on February 22.
The tour also includes stops at London’s O2 Brixton Academy, Manchester’s O2 Victoria Warehouse and Birmingham’s O2 Academy on February 6, 8 and 9 respectively. You can find a full list of dates further down. You can find tickets to the UK and Ireland dates here.
JANUARY
28 – 3Olympia – Dublin, Ireland
29 – Telegraph – Belfast, Northern Ireland
FEBRUARY
2 – L’Olympia – Paris, France
4 – O13 – Tillburg, Netherlands
5 – Forrest National – Brussels, Belgium
6 – O2 Brixton Academy – London, UK
8 – O2 Victoria Warehouse – Manchester, UK
9 – O2 Academy – Birmingham, UK
12 – Velodrom – Berlin, Germany
14 – Mitsubishi Electric Hall – Düsseldorf, Germany
15 – Sporthalle – Hamburg, Germany
17 – Zenith – Munich, Germany
18 – myticket Jahrhunderthalle – Frankfurt, Germany
21 – Volkshaus, Zurich, Switzerland
22 –Stadthalle – Vienna, Austria