 I'm here with Ankit Wadhwa and Ankit right at the beginning what I really want to ask you is you partnered with an astounding number of picketters all over the world regarding their NFTs and a lot of picket leaks. I was looking at all the names and clearly it wasn't possible for me to memorize all of them. So how exactly did you get into this business with the belief in the beginning? Because at that time NFT is metaverse even right now is quite a new concept so most people don't know about it so how did you feel like you want to invest in it and get involved in it in such a hurry? I mean first of all picket is a large sport they are more than a billion plus fans actually more than 1.5 billion fans globally in fact it is large enough that it is the second biggest sport in the world it has the second highest followership in the entire world after football and sometimes you don't realize how big the fandom for the sport is but where cricket has sort of lagged behind a little bit is in fan engagement yeah our engagement is largely limited to what you see on the television a brief bit of engagement when matches happen and I think we've seen some evolution on that with a lot of digital plays in cricket coming up especially around fantasy etc. So it has moved further but if you compare fan engagement with many of the top sports in the world I mean I think cricket has its way to go so that is what actually propelled us in this direction we see about 30% of any major sports revenue coming from aspects outside of marketing and media so memorabilia you know jerseys collectibles are very very a very very big part of any sports fans persona and therefore also a very big part of any sports overall revenue streams we haven't seen that in cricket as yet and that's where radio comes in that's what gives us the belief that that like a lot of things that have happened in the south asian part of the world you know have been digital first so we sort of leapfrog the physical businesses and move straight away into the digital sphere our conviction is also that given all the strong inputs given the numbers that we just talked about collectibles are just a matter of time and they're bound to happen and digital is where the leapfrog will take us given you know how other digital technologies have also matured in in the target users and customers right right okay and I mean like you like you said the whole digital thing I mean right now with your background it looks like I'm speaking to someone right out of the metaverse but moving on you've raised a hundred and twenty million dollars led by dream capital right I don't even know how many zeros there are over there how exactly did this come about seven okay so look um um this is clearly an exciting space and therefore um and and and the progress that we've made in terms of the signups as well in terms of taking the first mover advantage in a space which is you know where where we sort of a year year and a half ago when we started out we went in before a lot of people even knew what NFT stood for so that has that has come to our advantage to an extent but I think what what has also happened is over time funds and investors have realized the potential of the space the I would say we've always therefore had the ability to fundraise you know with more suitors than than the money we've needed and therefore the beauty of that is then you make the right choices right when dream capital we it is not just a financial investment this also adds a lot of strategic value and with a hundred and forty million plus sports fan users that belong to their ecosystem I mean you can put two and two together we've got something on the NFT side which is leapfrogging what has not happened in the physical world and you have a set of users the largest set of users in sport ready to take that on and that combination is that combination is what makes this investment very exciting for us right right okay now one thing you know since you're really the expert in this matter there are a lot of people who are just getting to know about NFTs and the meta was literally what NFT stands for right and then they start reading about news on the internet about it and there's one news which I just literally two three hours back there was an update about it and it's it's in there for the last three four weeks regarding this first tweet of Jack Dorsey which was bought for two point nine million dollars by somebody as an NFT and then it was the value of it right now is only fourteen thousand dollars somebody who's getting worried about this or confused about this whole issue what exactly would you would you say to them how would you explain the situation I mean first of all what I would say the NFTs are not I think it is unfair to look at NFTs as trading assets or at least put the primary lens on NFTs as a trading asset what we are talking about here is fandom and I mean if I told you that well very soon you will probably see in one of the iterations here Zaheer Khan photo and a Virender Sehwag photo right Virender Sehwag on twitter has you know more than two followers you add all his social media and physical followers ship together and you know that you can only imagine the scale of fandom there and a Virender Sehwag is coming out with 50 copies of an NFT where he talks about let's say you know his Multan innings yeah and only 50 of those fans only 50 of those fans could get their hands on this and truly claim this as an asset that they own which represents their fandom I mean then it's not a question of you know the trading dynamics the way people look at it it's a question of fandom election and other utilities and that is the second part that we will touch upon as we talk further I mean I think there's one aspect of collectible which is very exciting on NFTs which is sort of where the market has evolved first which is also what we you know started doing first where you can connect with the sport with your heroes you know buying being a part of their collectible ecosystems but very soon you will also see these assets can be utilized in ecosystem apps and games so if you own a card of it in the Sehwag an NFT card of it in the Sehwag you could bring him into your team which goes into an app or a game where you are competing let's say with me so your 11 player team and my 11 player team would be playing virtual tournaments so so everything that you've seen that you know that has happened in the physical world is very much feasible and possible for cricket cricket fans like us now in the virtual world so when you start looking at these aspects then the discussion is not so much about X million versus Y thousands it's more about you know how do I take my fandom and you know really add another flavor or a dimension to it which is beyond the limited options I've had so far right so basically an important point which you raise looking at it from a proper lens or a different perspective either you can look at it from the trading lens or like you've said look at it from the whole fandom perspective which you've just explained now moving on you know if you from whatever you've told me and from whatever I've seen of radio online would you say would I be correct in saying that radio is literally giving a new dimension to cricket fandom just like the cricket trump cards double the trump cards gave two kids in the 90s I mean I think that's a very good way of putting it because you know when we were younger as well we would you know we would collect what center fresh rappers to exchange it for trump cards that you would get you know and and then then then probably take it to school maybe some people took it to college as well I don't know but take it to school and then compare with the other friends on what you want versus what I got so yes the excitement is not very different from what you mentioned I think it only adds you know the entire aspect of digital to what we may have seen in our childhood and it takes that actually takes it further by several orders of magnitude in terms of what you could do with it I mean you could create different varieties of games it's not just trump cards right you could have virtual simulations you could have you know various forms of engagement and you will see that coming soon on the you know on the radio ecosystem where these nfts are a great collectibles but the fantastic utility items which connect you with the sport as well so bring you know you would end up using a lot of your fandom based knowledge in collecting the right cards because those cards and nfts you know would enable you to participate in different games and apps and that's not all I mean it also adds a dimension of physical world privilege which we'll also talk about and you will see more of that with radio okay okay now my last question to a person who doesn't understand cricket nfts but as a cricket fan how would you explain the whole concept of radio and nfts and metaverse and digital collectibles in 60 seconds I mean if you are a fan of the sport if you're a fan you know of any of the players as I mentioned who are in the video behind me and if those players had only a limited uh momentum that came out the question is as a fan how how excited would you be to get your hands on it what being an nft enables is it gives you ownership in the digital space which was not possible in the same way before it gives you ownership of a scarce asset yeah and beyond that I mean if you look at the privileges that come with this whether that's participating in games in the online domain or they have privileges like meeting your super heroes enabled by the fact that you own certain nfts that belong to them you know or go a step further maybe you could bowl to Virender Sehwag or any of the other players there or maybe you could face a ball by Zaheer Khan I mean those are things that typically money can't buy and for a fan that is valuable and exciting right and that's what radio enables now everything that I've said the respective of I mean I did not particularly use the word nft it's about how you as a fan yeah would enjoy the engagement and I think that's a very important dimension for all of us to understand that this is about fandom uh this is uh you know as nfts are digital goods there are different ways in which you can build digital goods here we are building digital goods around cricket which are exciting for our fans and super fans in the sport right so very very well put for you uh clearly a lot of exciting times ahead for all the cricket fans out there thank you so much for talking to us and uh all the best for the future thank you Kapil thank you