A son of a Singapore financier and a son of the family that started Mewah International Inc., an edible oils company, have founded ARC, a private, NFT-based social networking app that will be open to anyone who owns their non-fungible token, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday. They plan to eventually create an “ARC metaverse,” a huge virtual community that includes a gaming element.
- Kiat Lim, 28, the son of financier Peter Lim, and Elroy Cheo, 37, of the family that started Mewah, told Bloomberg that ARC’s app-based community will connect people from Taipei to South Korea and Australia to network, collaborate on projects and share stories.
- The next step will be to host exclusive member events, and then create the ARC metaverse with the gaming element. ARC will charge an annual subscription fee to those who choose not to own ARC’s NFTs.
- “We are a networking ecosystem that encompasses online and offline experiences, and pushing online boundaries,” Lim told Bloomberg.
- The scions are among the latest of the well-to-do to who are jumping into the NFT phenomenon. Paris Hilton in April launched her first NFT drop on Nifty Gateway, for which she has collaborated with Blake Kathryn, an acclaimed digital artist.
- Lim and Cheo began work on their startup since before the coronavirus pandemic started. The app works only on iPhones now, but an Android version is being tested.
- “ARC” partly expresses the founders’ goal to bridge the real and virtual worlds and the transition to Web 3.
- “We want to create a community that Asia has never seen before,” Cheo told Bloomberg. “We see the world change a lot, especially after Covid. People in this target segment now all want a sense of belonging.”
Read more: A Crypto Guide to the Metaverse
