Consumer brand guru Shaun Neff, and the founders of The Sandbox and Polygon have joined the Outlier Ventures Partnership to accelerate the Open Metaverse
LONDON, Nov. 18, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The Metaverse | Today, leading crypto VC Outlier Ventures has unveiled the latest strategic members to join the Outlier Ventures Partnership. These new members, who the firm calls ‘Outliers’, will invest in, advise and collaborate with startups going through Outlier Ventures’ Base Camp accelerator, dubbed the Y-Combinator of the Metaverse.
Established in 2014, Outlier Ventures was one of the first VC firms dedicated to investing in the emerging crypto ecosystem. Since launching its Base Camp accelerator in 2019, Outlier Ventures has received over 5,000 applications for its highly sought after virtual accelerator and has helped raise over $250 million in seed funding for its growing portfolio of 100+ high-profile projects from across the world, such as Crucible and Biconomy. In addition, Outlier Ventures has supported the launch and growth of several billion-dollar crypto economies including Fetch.ai, Boson Protocol, Secret Network, Blox Move, Swash and DIA Data. Their portfolio includes notable projects across DeFi, NFTs and blockchain infrastructure with a focus on emergent Metaverse use cases such as NFT-based digital couture fashion brands, avatar marketplaces, decentralized music publishing platforms, play-to-earn games, augmented reality social positioning protocols, and more.
In the last year, Outlier Ventures has expanded its Base Camp program to partner with leading protocols such as Filecoin / IPFS, Polygon, and Polkadot to host dedicated accelerator programs for these Web3 ecosystems. Through its blockchain agnostic approach, Outlier Ventures has achieved record growth, doubled its cohort intake year after year, and is on target to accelerate well over 100 startups in 2022, making it one of the most active investors in the space by deal volume and the most active Metaverse accelerator globally.
Since its inception, Outlier Ventures has always viewed its portfolio as an open stack of technologies that contribute to a new web paradigm, referred to as Web3, based on principles that prioritize the sovereignty of the user, their data and digital wealth, over platform and shareholder supremacy. In January of 2021, Outlier Ventures published its thesis on the imminent arrival of the Metaverse, outlining how Web3 would serve as an operating system for an Open Metaverse. This thesis, Open Metaverse OS, proposed a framework and pathway towards architecting an Open Metaverse that could serve as an antidote to a broken internet— one that is centralized, closed, proprietary, and extractive. Outlier Ventures’ Open Metaverse OS foresaw how web monopolies like Facebook would view the Metaverse as a way to extend and deepen their anti-social business models, proven by Facebook’s most recent focus on the Metaverse and its rebrand to Meta. As innovations in blockchain technology continue to converge with VR and AR and are applied to the creator economy, creative industries and new virtual worlds, Outlier Ventures’ Open Metaverse OS is enabling new use cases in gaming, fashion, entertainment and e-commerce.
‘’The Metaverse will eventually connect every platform, virtual world and game into a single permissionless peer-to-peer economy native to the internet, most importantly underpinned by crypto and Web3 technology. We should absolutely consider crypto and the Metaverse as one and the same thing. In the same way that crypto is increasingly experienced through immersive experiences that bridge the real world with virtual assets, the Metaverse makes our physical and digital spaces indistinguishable. And long term, crypto will subordinate every fiat-based economy on the planet. But it is a peaceful revolution,” says Outlier Ventures Founder and CEO, Jamie Burke.
Each year Outlier Ventures invites an exclusive group of founders, investors, and culture makers to join the Outlier Ventures Partnership. New members of Outlier Ventures— dubbed ‘Outliers’— join as mentors, investors and have the opportunity to collaborate on joint ventures with Outlier Ventures portfolio companies, while taking a direct stake in these companies and their token economies. This latest cohort of members will usher in the next phase of growth for Outlier Ventures in new markets and industries, and enable Outlier Ventures to serve as a bridge between some of the world’s biggest companies and creators to the Web3-based Metaverse.
Jamie Burke adds, ‘’We need the best people from across finance, culture and technology to bring the knowledge, reach and capital to accelerate the Open Metaverse. This new member intake will allow us to broaden the impact of our community based on principles we all share and fire a warning shot to Facebook’s Meta. This was our largest single new member intake to date and we will continue to add members who can bring a new level of dynamism and financial firepower to this ecosystem, and in particular, improve the diversity of representation required to reach billions of users globally”.
The following new Outliers represent some of the most prominent figures across entertainment, music, consumer and celebrity brands, and Web3;
- Shaun Neff, founder, investor and advisor— Neff Headware, Sun Bum, Robinhood, Sony, Target, Moon with Kendall Jenner, and Beach House Group brands
- Joel Zimmerman (aka deadmau5), GRAMMY-nominated electronic artist
- Dean Wilson, CEO & Founder of SEVEN20, Manager & business partner of deadmau5
- Snoop Dogg, musician and entrepreneur
- Nicholas Adler, President of Unified Music Group, Snoop Dogg Management Team
- Cathy Hackl, Chief Metaverse Officer & CEO, Futures Intelligence Group
- Sandeep Nailwal, Founder of Polygon Network
- Sebastien Borget, COO & Co-Founder of The Sandbox
- Sillytuna, prominent crypto angel investor and NFT collector
- Max Stealth, Co-founder and CEO, MaxStealth Enterprises
- Gabby Dizon, Co-Founder of Yield Guild Games
Animoca Brands will join as one of Outlier Ventures’ first institutional investors. Animoca is a leader in digital entertainment, blockchain, and gamification that is driving digital property rights via NFTs and gaming to help build the Open Metaverse with several notable investments in Dapper Labs, The Sandbox and several of Outlier’s portfolio including Crucible and their recently announced Open Meta DAO.
The new cohort also includes several Outlier Ventures alumni and successful Base Camp founders who will now join the firm as members including;
- Jim McNelis, Founder of NFT42 and Nameless
- Justin Banon, CEO and Co-Founder of Boson Protocol
- Irfon Watkins, Founder of DOVU, TAPMYDATA and CHAPEL
- Anesu Machoko, CEO & Founder at MetaDigital, former Director of Investments and Crypto Economics at Outlier Ventures
In addition, the following Outlier Ventures executives have been promoted to Partners and will join this new cohort as strategic members;
- Scott Collen, Lead of Base Camp Accelerator, Partner at Outlier Ventures
- Charlotte Kapoor, Lead of Outlier Ventures’ token launch platform Ascent Accelerator, Outlier Ventures Partner
- Chris Donovan, Head of Legal at Outlier Ventures, Outlier Ventures Partner
‘’What Outlier Ventures has achieved is incredible— they have assembled a portfolio of standout innovators and creatives from across the Metaverse. I am excited to work with Outlier to help take these founders mainstream and grow their reach to billions of users, while also carving out a clear path for the world’s biggest brands and celebrities to enter the space. I’ve worked with top talent from Kendall Jenner to Snoop Dogg and I can tell you firsthand that those at the helm of the world’s leading media and entertainment empires are trying to figure out their role in this new economy. They are overloaded with options and offers and they need a way to filter through to the best partners who can offer them a stake in the next billion-dollar unicorns. Outlier is one of the only games in town to operate at their scale.’’ — Entrepreneur Shaun Neff on joining the Outlier Ventures Partnership
“deadmau5 and I are proud to join Outlier Ventures as strategic members and collaborators. Their position as leaders in the Web3 investment landscape is very much in line with our vision and goals for architecting the open-source metaverse.” — Dean Wilson, CEO & Founder of SEVEN20, longtime manager and partner of deadmau5.
“The Metaverse represents one of the most important technological landscapes of our generation. It will serve as the backdrop for how society will work, play, and collectively conduct our day-to-day lives. There is a momentous opportunity to architect a world where individuals and brands alike can create and connect more meaningfully with their communities and benefit from new models for value generation. Those who see the Metaverse as the next iteration of the internet recognize that it must be built on decentralized, open infrastructure, and there are few organizations who understand this vision as clearly and masterfully as Outlier Ventures. I am thrilled to join this impressive cohort and partner with these new members to fuel the growth of the Metaverse.” — Cathy Hackl, Chief Metaverse Officer & CEO, Futures Intelligence Group.
With this new member intake, Outlier Ventures is driving the convergence of culture, technology, and commerce in a way that empowers creators and consumers alike, while introducing new models for value generation that can disrupt and transform industries like Hollywood, Wall Street and Silicon Valley, all at once.
Outlier Ventures will highlight its latest work in the upcoming virtual summit, Diffusion Digital, taking place December 8-10, which will feature many of its newest members, Base Camp participants and portfolio companies.
For more information on Outlier Ventures, please visit OutlierVentures.io.
