Nizel Pradhan
Impact Venture Capital announced today its investment in Virtualness’ oversubscribed $8M seed round. Virtualness is a mobile-first platform designed to help creators and brands navigate the complex world of Web3. The fundraise was led by Blockchange Ventures and joined by Polygon Ventures, F7 Ventures, Micron Ventures, Better Capital, FalconX, Impact Venture Capital, Neythri Futures Fund, Oceans Ventures, Perot Jain, VC3 DAO, Carolyn Everson, Randi Zuckerberg, Nusier Yassin (Nas Daily), Nikki Farb, Stacy Brown-Philpot, and other thought-leaders.
There are more than 300M creators worldwide, half of them joining the creator economy in the last two years. Despite this extraordinary migration, these creators lack even the most basic tools to scale their businesses and easily capture the value-creation opportunities that blockchain and Web3 represent. Centered on the ethos of “empathy at the core,” Virtualness puts creators first, and is building the playbook for easy design, efficient sharing, and seamless digital commerce.
Upon launch in early 2023, authenticated creators and brands will use the platform to design, mint, and showcase branded digital collectibles; easily share across their social media channels; directly interact with their fans and community; enable unique experiences, and unlock new channels for monetization. Education, personalization, discovery, integration with Web2 and Web3 platforms, and a mobile-first experience are core to the platform.
Virtualness is co-founded by Kirthiga Reddy, employee #1 and former Managing Director of Facebook India & South Asia and former Investment Partner at Softbank Investment Advisers, along with Saurabh Doshi, former Head of Meta, Asia-Pacific for Entertainment; Emerging Markets & Greater China Region for Creators and former Vice President at Viacom Group & Star India. Reddy and Doshi will leverage their decades of global entrepreneurial experience partnering with creators, media, brands, and tech platforms.
“We are excited about our early investment alongside Micron and others into Virtualness,” said Jack Crawford, Founding General Partner at Impact Venture Capital. “Kirthiga, Saurabh, and the team at Virtualness have dramatically simplified the process for creators to create, sell, and share digital collectibles tapping into the multi-billion dollar Creator Economy.”
“Creators are the ultimate entrepreneurs. We’ve been at the heart of the Web2 ecosystem building and onboarding creators and brands, and we’re on our journey to do it again for Web3. People are spending more and more time in various digital worlds and have the desire for customized experiences, individual identities, expressions, and personalized commerce,” said Reddy and Doshi. “We’re excited to see how creators and brands mimic various physical experiences in digital forms and in newer ways. This is about building a new economy – unlocked by branded digital collectibles that deliver unique experiences, capability, and value. Our belief is that everything that can move from a physical form to digital will move.”
Reddy and Doshi are working closely with creators to inform how they build their product. Nusier Yassin (Nas Daily), a beloved creator with more than 50M followers across social media platforms and an investor in Virtualness, is one of the tech-forward creators helping shape the product from the concept stage.
About Impact Venture Capital
Impact Venture Capital is a Silicon Valley-based early-stage venture capital firm that invests alongside corporate venture groups and top-tier investors in early-stage technology startups with a focus on artificial intelligence applied to security, finance, digital health, and other fast-growing industry sectors.
