K-pop music enters metaverse with HK gaming company Animoca Brands

Digital entertainment and gamification company Animoca Brands has formed a joint venture to build a music metaverse, issue non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and ecosystem tokens based on the intellectual property rights of Cube Ent’s globally popular K-pop music artists and actors.

The joint venture will issue NFTs using resources including digital sound sources, albums, portraits, and avatars of globally popular K-pop artists under the management of Cube Ent. This will enable true digital property rights and other blockchain benefits for artists and their fans.

Cube Ent has 50 talents under management, including K-pop artists Jo Kwon, BTOB, PENTAGON, LIGHTSUM; entertainers Park Mi Sun, Lee Hwee Jae, Lee Sang Jun, Kim Kyung Ah and Heo Kyeong Hwan. Other entertainers include entertainers Kong Seo Yeong and Jung Ji Woo.

Yat Siu, co-founder and executive chairman of Animoca Brands, said: “K-pop is taking the world by storm, and here at Animoca Brands, we can’t wait to work with Cube Ent and its roster of K-pop artists as we continue our efforts to make the open metaverse a reality.”

Ahn Woo Hyung, CEO of Cube Ent, added, “We are excited to collaborate with Animoca Brands to create NFTs and an associated ecosystem featuring Cube Ent’s IPs of music, images, and more. We anticipate this will be an important beginning for leading the global digital culture market and advancing the digital content industry."

Animoca Brands said as NFTs are digital assets and collectibles that possess many characteristics normally associated with physical items, including authenticity, rarity, scarcity, ownership, provenance, and other properties that are independently guaranteed, verified, and secured on blockchain, the partnership can provide users a truly ownable experience, as these characteristics of NFTs allow them to attain significant value as digital collectibles.

Previosuly, Animoca Brands closed a capital raise for US$65 million, conducted at a pre-money valuation of US$2.2 billion. The new capital will be used to fund strategic investments and acquisitions, product development, and licenses for popular intellectual properties.

Investors in the round included Liberty City Ventures, Ubisoft Entertainment, Sequoia China, Dragonfly Capital, Com2uS, Kingsway Capital, 10T Holdings, Token Bay Capital, Smile Group, Tess Ventures, MSA Capital, Octava Fund, Adit Ventures, Summer Capital, Sigitech Holdings, Black Anthem Ltd, Mirana Corp, and Justin Sun.

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