Genies is an American

avatar Avatar (, ; ), is a concept within Hinduism that in Sanskrit literally means "descent". It signifies the material appearance or incarnation of a powerful deity, goddess or spirit on Earth. The relative verb to "alight, to make one's appearanc ...

technology company founded by Akash Nigam and Evan Rosenbaum in 2017. Genies' consumer app allow users to create fully personalized avatars to be used in apps such as

Giphy Giphy ( ), styled as GIPHY, is an American online database and search engine that allows users to search for and share short looping videos with no sound that resemble animated GIF files. History Beginnings and early history Giphy was founded ...

iMessage iMessage is an instant messaging service developed by Apple Inc. and launched in 2011. iMessage functions exclusively on Apple platforms: macOS, iOS, iPadOS, and watchOS. Core features of iMessage, available on all supported platforms, includ ...

, and

Instagram Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...

. Genies also offers a

software development kit A software development kit (SDK) is a collection of software development tools in one installable package. They facilitate the creation of applications by having a compiler, debugger and sometimes a software framework. They are normally specific to ...

(SDK) enabling brands to create a branded avatar experience and online marketplace directly in their apps. The company also consists of an Avatar Agency that creates digital versions of its clients.

History

When Nigam was a junior in college at the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

studying computer science and economics, he met

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

student, Evan Rosenbaum, and soon after, the two co-founded a company called Blend. Blend started as a mobile app for college students that gifted items in exchange for sharing photos. The co-founders received an acquisition offer but declined. Shortly after, the pair began using much of Blend’s proprietary technology to build Genies. In 2021, Genies started offering

non-fungible token A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique digital identifier that cannot be copied, substituted, or subdivided, that is recorded in a blockchain, and that is used to certify authenticity and ownership. The ownership of an NFT is recorded in the b ...

s (NFTs) in partnership with celebrities such as musician Shawn Mendes. In March 2022, then-former Disney CEO

Bob Iger Robert Allen Iger (; born February 10, 1951) is an American businessman who is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of The Walt Disney Company. He previously served as the President of ABC Television between 1994 and 1995 and the President and Ch ...

joined the board of the company. In August 2022, the company released its NFT storefront, “The Warehouse.” The storefront will be open on Dapper Labs’ Flow blockchain and allows users to download the Genies Studio app to create their own avatars and buy digital fashion items to dress them. Because each item is an NFT, the original creator gets a cut of the revenue each time that item is resold and owns the intellectual property behind the design.

Funding

The company has raised $40 million in funding from Silicon Valley venture capitalists such as

Jim Breyer James W. Breyer (born July 26, 1961) is an American venture capitalist, founder and chief executive officer of Breyer Capital, an investment and venture philanthropy firm, and a former managing partner at Accel Partners, a venture capital firm. B ...

, NEA, and

Foundation Capital Foundation Capital is a venture capital firm located in Silicon Valley. The firm was founded in 1995, and in 2012 managed more than $2.4 billion in investment capital. History Foundation Capital was founded in 1995. The firm raised its sevent ...

. In addition to traditional VC firms. Genies has also received funding from other sources, such as entrepreneurs, talent agencies, and Fortune 500 companies. Genies currently employs 90 people and the company is valued at over $100 million. In November 2020, Japanese multinational video game developer and publisher

Bandai Namco Entertainment is a Japanese multinational video game video game publisher, publisher headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo. Its international branches, Bandai Namco Entertainment America and Bandai Namco Entertainment Europe, are respectively headquartered in ...

announced a $3 million investment in Genies including an expansion in Asia.

References

External links

*{{Official website, https://genies.com/ 2017 establishments in the United States Companies based in Los Angeles Virtual avatars