Telugu Actor Rana Daggubati Forays Into Metaverse With His Start-Up Ikonz. Here's What You Need To Know

With his newly formed venture Ikonz, Telugu actor Rana Daggubati, is foraying into the metaverse. Ikonz is a metaverse firm that aims to assist musicians, celebrities, and collectibles owners in managing their assets. It was co-founded in August 2021 by Indian-American entrepreneur Abhinav Varma Kalidindi and Rana Daggubati. In its quest to bring India's premium entertainment IPs, brands, and tales to the metaverse, the start-up is collaborating with Amar Chitra Katha, Tinkle, and other renowned Indian brands. Mr Daggubati's intellectual property rights, too, will be held by the company, which includes legacy films under the banner of film production and distribution company Suresh Productions.

Rana had even tweeted about Ikonz a few months ago.

https://twitter.com/RanaDaggubati/status/1468822904859414530

Talking about the brand's vision, the actor had said then that he was looking forward to starting this new chapter as a co-founder at Ikonz, and was excited to work with some of the country's most well-known IPs, such as Amar Chitra Katha and Tinkle, to pave the path into the metaverse.

In March 2022, the metaverse start-up received undisclosed seed funding from Village Global, an early-stage venture capital firm, and Woodstock, a technology investment firm. Village Global is backed by Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and Bill Gates.

https://twitter.com/ikonz_club/status/1500773451929645056

The start-up wants to tell Indian stories to the world through NFTs and the metaverse. They have already onboarded Amar Chitra Katha, Tinkle, and characters such as Suppandi and Shambu.

The company hopes to use NFTs and the metaverse to tell Indian stories to the rest of the world. Amar Chitra Katha, Tinkle, and iconic characters such as Suppandi and Shikari Shambu are aleady on-board.

In 2021, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) were all the rage, and the Collins Dictionary even named it the word of the year. The world is becoming increasingly aware of how NFTs work as building bricks for peer-to-peer economies in virtual worlds, or the metaverse, amid the crypto and blockchain boom.

The metaverse is a network of 3-dimensional virtual worlds where people can interact, engage in some business, and form social ties through their virtual avatars. It can be considered as a virtual reality equivalent of the internet. While it's still in its nascent stages, it has suddenly become a major business, with companies like Meta (formerly Facebook), Microsoft, Epic Games, Roblox, and others establishing their own virtual worlds or metaverses.