Yesterday The Walt Disney Company hosted its Disney Accelerator Demo Day for the participants to present their solutions to 15 senior company executives. This year, four of the six startups are web3 firms. Non-fungible tokens were one of three themes this year, and the other technologies were augmented reality (AR) and artificial intelligence (AI) virtual characters.
Flickplay is one of the four startups. It has a web3 social app that enables digital collectibles to appear in real locations. For example, you can take a picture of a collectible avatar at a famous landmarket – like the Beatles at the zebra crossing in Abbey Road. Flickplay has a deal with TheSandbox metaverse.
Lockerverse is a non-fungible token (NFT) community platform that tells ‘culture-defining stories’. The website looks like it’s still in stealth mode, but it’s already working with Disney subsidiary ESPN on a free NFT for the Celebration Bowl Trophy, a post-season college football event.
Obsess enables brands to create 3D virtual stores that incorporate augmented reality. The web3 aspect is optional for this one. It has already partnered with Disney for the Disney Music Emporium virtual experience, and it’s in discussions with other Disney divisions. It’s not that new a startup and has previously developed stores for several brands, including Ralph Lauren, Christian Dior, Coach and Fendi.
Polygon should need no introduction for those familiar with web3. The company is best known as the most popular Ethereum sidechain, used by main to sidestep the high Ethereum transaction costs. It’s working with Disney on a proof of concept for digital collectibles.
Meanwhile, so far Disney’s entry into the blockchain space has been a cautious one. Former Disney CEO Bob Iger gave an explanation earlier this year. The company is certainly interested in NFTs and the metaverse but wants to ensure that user behavior is appropriate.
So far, it has licensed many of its properties to NFT platform Veve. But it’s looking to go further now with a recent job advert for an NFT lawyer. The new hire will work on NFTs, blockchain, metaverse and decentralized finance (DeFi) transactions. The first three make sense. What DeFi transactions might Disney be planning?
