Tokens.com has acquired the team behind the customized game experience, Startup Slang, along with its e-commerce intellectual property.
Startup Slang has joined Token.com’s subsidiary, Metaverse Group (the group is not connected to Meta in any way). The Metaverse Group will also have exclusive access to the shoppable metaverse technology Startup Slang developed. That technology links in-game purchase transactions to Shopify Plus storefronts.
“We know that three-dimensional marketing is the way of the future.”
Andrew Kiguel
CEO, Tokens.com
Startup Slang was the first to connect a mobile game to a Shopify Plus store, according to Tokens.com. The technology allows the Metaverse Group to build a customized gamified experience for brands looking to reach new audiences in what it claims is a seamless and immersive way.
“We know that three-dimensional marketing is the way of the future. This is evident with all the money tech giants like Apple are spending in creating wearable headsets,” said Andrew Kiguel, CEO of Tokens.com. “It has been challenging finding the right solutions to connect products in digital experiences to e-commerce, but by acquiring the Startup Slang team and their IP, this gives Metaverse Group an added advantage to further enhance gamified shopping experiences.”
The Startup Slang technology is used in a popular interior home decor game called Design Home. Design Home is a mobile game that has been downloaded over 100 million times in the Apple and Android app stores.
The game allows players to decorate interior design spaces with digital renderings of real furniture and decor pieces, with links to where they can be purchased directly from popular interior decor brands in the physical world.
With this new technology, the company hopes to further bridge the gap between the physical and virtual world, using middleware solutions to create a seamless shopping experience, Tokens.com claims.
RELATED: Tokens.com purchases 50 percent of virtual real-estate group Metaverse
Tokens.com did not disclose the cost of the acquisition or its closing date.
Tokens.com Corp is a publicly traded company NEO Exchange Canada: COIN)(Frankfurt Stock Exchange: 76M) (OTCQB US: SMURF) that invests in web3 assets and owns an inventory of digital assets. The company focuses on three operating segments: crypto staking, the metaverse and web3 gaming. The company also owns a portfolio of web3 related domain names.
In recent weeks, however, artificial intelligence (AI) has moved to the technology forefront while interest in NFTs and the metaverse appears to have faded, according to Coindesk. “After being hot for a good part of last year, the metaverse is, at least for now, facing a ‘cooldown moment,’” said Cathy Hackl, chief metaverse officer at innovation and design consultancy Journey and a speaker at Consensus 2023.”
Hackl said that wasn’t a bad thing, and opined the metaverse was a longer term vision that would form the “future of the internet.”
RELATED: Tokens.com’s metaverse subsidiary acquires NFT minting platform CocoNFT
Startup Slang is just Metaverse Group’s latest acquisition. The group acquired CocoNFT in January, an NFT minting platform for social media posts that it planned to integrate with Metaverse’s virtual-world B2B products.
Tokens.com is becoming a major stakeholder in Metaverse as part of its strategy to expand its offerings to the NFT space, as Metaverse claims it is one of the world’s first virtual NFT-based real estate companies.
Tokens closed its acquisition of a 50 percent stake in Metaverse Group for $1.68 million CAD in 2021. It completed its transaction, acquiring the Metaverse Group in full, in June.
Image of the game Design Home courtesy of Glu