 Okay, welcome back everyone. This is theCUBE's coverage here. Monaco, take a trip all the way out here to cover the Monaco Crypto Summit. I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE. A lot of action happening presented by digital bits and this ecosystem that's coming together, building on top of digital bits and other blockchains to bring value at the application. These new apps are emerging. Almost every category is going to be decentralized. This is our opinion and the world believes it. And they're here as well. We've got Oscar Bailey, CEO and co-founder of Agoraverse. Agora is a shopping metaverse. Coming out soon, we'll get the dates. Oscar, welcome to theCUBE. Thank you very much for having me. We were just talking before we came on camera. You're a young gun, young entrepreneur. You're a gamer. Little bit too old to miss the eSports window, as you said, you're only 25, it's great. So that's gonna miss the window, I wish I was 25. Gaming, the pandemic with remote work. Big tailwind, acceleration around the idea of this new digital virtual hybrid world we're living in where people want to have experiences that are similar to physical and virtual. You're doing something really cool around shopping. Explain what's going on. I know it's not out yet, it's in preview. Take a minute to explain. Absolutely, so Agoraverse really is a way to create those online storefront environments, virtual environments that are really much inspired by video games in their usage and kind of how the experience goes forward. We want to recreate the brand's theme, aesthetic, storytelling, or the NFT project as well. All of that created in a virtual setting, which is way more interesting than looking at a traditional webpage. And also, you can do some crazy stuff that you can't do in real life in a real life store, with some crazy effects and lighting and stuff. So it's a whole new frontier that we're trying to cover, and we believe that there is a real use case for shopping-centric Metaverse experiences and to actually make the Metaverse a bit more than a buzzword that it is at the moment. Okay, so Agora is the shopping Metaverse. Agoraverse is the company name and product name. You're on the Solana blockchain, got my notes here. But I gotta ask you, I mean, people are trying to do this right now. We see a lot of high-end clients like Microsoft Showroom, Showroom Vibes. Not so much e-commerce per se, but more like the big, I mean, it's a little hanging fruit. How do you guys compare to some other apps out there, other Metaverse? I think compared to the bigger companies, we are way more flexible and we can act way more quickly than they can. They still have a lot of ground to cover and a lot of convincing to do with their communities of users. Metaverse is not really the most popular topic at the moment. It's still very much kind of looked at as a trend, as something that is just passing. And they have to deal with this community interaction that is not really favorable for them. There are other questions about the Metaverse that are not being talked about as often, but the ecological costs, for example, of running a Metaverse like Facebook envisions it, of running those virtual headsets, running those environments, it's very costly on the ecological side of things and it's not as often mentioned. And I think that's actually their biggest challenge. Can you give an example for folks that are in the weeds on that? What do you mean by that? The cost to build the headsets, is it the servers? It's more of the servers really. You need to run a lot of servers, which is really costly on the environment and environmental questions are at the center of public debates anyways. And companies have to play that game as well. So they will have to find kind of this balance between well, building the school Metaverse but doing it in an ecological friendly manner as well. I think that's their toughest challenge. And what's your solution? Just using that blockchain? Well, because some people say, hey, that's not so eco-friendly either. That's part of it. And it's also part of why we are choosing an ecosystem such as Solana as a starter. It's not limited to only Solana, but Solana is known as a blockchain that is very much ecological inclined. Transactions are less polluting and definitely this problem is tackled in the fact that we are offering this product on a case by case scenario. Brands come to us, we build this environment and we run something that is proper to them. So the scale of it is also way less important than what Facebook is trying to build. Yeah, they're trying to build the all-encompassing, all singing, all dancing as we say, system. And they're not getting a lot of luck. They just got slam dunked this week and the news, I saw the, you know, FTC moved against them on the acquisition of the exercise app. It's a tough battle for them, they still like it. They got a headwind, I wouldn't say tailwind. They broke democracy, so they got to pay for it, right? Exactly. As I always say, definitely revenge going on there. I'm not a big fan of what they did. The FTC, I think that's bad, they shouldn't block acquisitions, but they do buy, they don't really build much. That's well-documented in Facebook, really doesn't build anything except for Facebook. That's right. What's the one thing Facebook has done besides Facebook? Everything they've tried failed except for Facebook. Yeah, so we'll see what's going on with the Metaverse side of things. Facebook's so successful, not really, one trick boning, they bought Instagram, they bought WhatsApp, they're not really successful. That's true, they do have the means, though, to maybe become successful with something. If you're watching out there, oh, John just said Facebook's not successful. I meant they have one product company they'd use their money to buy everything. And that's some people don't like that. But anyway, the startup's liking is to get bought out. Okay, so let's get back to the Metaverse. It's coming out. Is the business model to build for others? Are you going to have a system for users? What's the approach? How are you viewing this? What's the business you're going after? So we are very much a B2B type of service where we can create custom kind of tailor-made virtual environments for brands where we dedicate our team to building those environments which has been what we have been at the start to really kickstart the initiative. But we're also developing the tool that will allow anybody to develop their own shop themselves using what we give them to do. Something kind of like the Sims for those that know building their environment and building their shop, which they will then be to put online and for anybody of their user-based customers to have a look at. So it's kind of the tailor-made experience but also the more broader experience where we want to create this tool, develop this tool, make it accessible to the public with a subscription-based model where any individual that has an idea and maybe a product that is interesting for the metaverse be able to create this virtual storefront and upload it directly. How long does it take to build an environment? Let's say I want to do a cube. I go to a lot of venues all around the world, Moscone in San Francisco, the Sands Convention Center in Las Vegas, we're here in Monaco. How do I replicate these environments? Do I call you up and say, hey, I need some artists, do you guys render it? What's the, take us through the process. Yeah, it's basically a case-by-case scenario at the moment very much. We're working with our partners that find brands that are interested in getting into the metaverse and we then design the shops, well, it depends on the brand. Some have a really clear idea of what they want. Some are a bit more open to it and they're like, well, we have this and this. Can you build something? I mean, I could see the Apple Store saying, hey, you know, they're pretty standard Apple stores. You got cases of eye-watches. I mean, that's easily to replicateable. Probably a good ROI for them. Exactly, it's, Is that what you're thinking? Exactly, yeah, it depends. And we want to add a layer of something because just replicating the store simply, it's maybe not as interesting, you know. It's just, oh, okay, I'm in the store, it's white everywhere, it's Apple, right? It's like, oh, I'm at the dentist. But we want to add some video game elements to those experiences, but very subtle ones. The ones that won't make you feel, oh, I'm playing one of these games, you know. It's very subtle things. You can jump into immersive experience as defined by the brand. I mean, the brand will control the values. If you're, say, Apple and you're at the eye-watch table, you could have a digital assistant pop in there with an avatar. Exactly. You can jump down a rabbit hole and say, hey, I want this eye-watch. I'm a mountain biker, for example. I could get experience of mountain biking with my watch on. I fall off, and anyone picks me up. I mean, all these things that they advertise is what goes on. Yeah, and we can recreate these experiences and what they're advertising and into a more immersive experience is what we're trying to do. Our goal is to create experiences. We know that, you know, why does someone spend so much at Disneyland? It's like triple the price or whatever. Because, you know, it's Mickey Mouse around you. That's the experience that comes around. And often the experience is more important than the product sometimes. It's hard, it's really hard to get that first-class citizen experience with the event or venue physical, which is being challenged. I know the metaverse is going to try to solve this. So I got to ask you, what's your vision on solving that? Okay, that's the holy grail. That's what we're talking about here. I got a physical event or place. I want to replicate it in the metaverse, but create that just as good first-party citizen-like experience. Yeah, I mean, that's the whole event-type of business side of the metaverse is also a huge one. It's one that we're choosing to tackle after the e-commerce one, but it's definitely something that has been asked a lot by the brands. We're like, we want to release this store for an event that is in real life, but we want to make it accessible to the largest number. That's why we saw with Fortnite as well, all those events, the fashion week in the central land, the sandbox. There's a cube in that Fortnite too. Yeah, there you go. And so the event aspect is super important. And we want those meta shops to be places where a brand can organize an event. Let's say they want to make the entrance paid. They can do an NFT for that if they want, and then the user has to connect the NFT to access the event. That's an idea, right? But that's definitely possible. And that's how we leverage blockchain as well with those companies and say, you know, you're not familiar with this. Accent method, you're badging. You know, the gaming world we were talking earlier, badging and credentials and access methods, and a tech concept can be easily ported to NFTs. Yeah, exactly. Exactly, and brands are interested in that. Yeah, of course, yeah. By being the NFT, that's cool. So I got to ask you the origination story. Take me through how this all started. Was it a seed of an idea? You and your friends get together. Was it an itch you were scratching when you really into this? What's the origination story and where you're at now? So we started off in January, really, with quite a different idea. It was called the Lofts Business Club. It's an NFT collection on the Solana blockchain. And the whole idea behind it is that NFT holders would have access to their virtual apartments that we call the Lofts. It got very popular. We got a really big following at the start. It was really the trend back in January, February. And we managed to sell out successfully the whole collection of 5,000 NFTs. And yeah, we started as a group of friends, really like-minded friends from my hometown in Metz and France, who are today the co-founders and the associates. With different backgrounds, Leo has the marketing side of things. Claude has the 3D designing. We had all our different skills coming into it. Obviously, my English was quite helpful as well because French people in English, it's not often the best French. Yeah, and Amarillo with the COO has been doing amazing on the kind of the serious stuff. You know, the taxis, lawyers, the whole- All the operational, all the trains running on time. Yeah, exactly. Making sure people get their jobs done. Yeah, exactly. So it's- Well, too long of a lunch. Because, you know, a French would take what? Two hour lunches? Yeah. You have to enjoy a jet of coffee and stuff. That's wine, you know, both creative. But yeah, it's a friend's stuff that started as a passion project and it got so quick. And today I'm here talking to you in this setting. It's like- You're pretty excited. I mean, it's super excited, it's such a- We're, you know, we feel like we're building something that's new. And our developer team, we're now a team of 15 in total with developers based in Paris, mostly. And everybody is feeling like, you know, they're contributing to something new. And that's what's exciting about it, you know? It's something that's not really done or it's trying to be done, but nobody really knows the way. It's pioneering days, but the pandemic has shifted the culture faster because people are like, certainly the Gen Zs are like, I don't want to use that old stuff. And, but they still want to go to like games or events or go to stores. But once you go to a store, I mean, I go to the Apple store all the time where I live in Palo Alto, California. It's like, yeah, I love that store. And, you know, I know it by heart. I don't have to go there. Welcome to the Genius Bar. Virtually, I get the same job done. Yeah, exactly. That's what we want to do. And yeah, the pandemic is just, it's been all about improving, you know, people's condition, life conditions at home, I think. And that's what kind of boosted the whole metaverse conversation and Facebook really grabbing onto it as well. It's just that people were stuck at home. And for gamers, that's fine. We're used to be stuck at home playing video games all day. We survived the pandemic fine. But for other people, it was a bit more of a new experience. Well, Oscar, one of the cool things is that, you said like mine, you and your founding team, always the secret to success, but now you see a lot of old guys like me and gals coming in too. You smart people are like minded. They get it. Especially ones that have seen the waves before. When you have this kind of change, it's a cultural shift and technology shift and business model shift at the same time. And to me, there's going to be chaos, but at the end of the day, I mean, there's fun and chaos. That's opportunity. It's a fun and opportunity. There's fun and chaos, you know. And yeah, like-minded people. And the team has really been the driving factor with our company. We're all very much excited about what we're doing and it's been driving us forward. Well, keep in touch. Thanks for coming on theCUBE and sharing your story with us in the world. We really appreciate it. We'll keep in touch with you guys too. Love what you do. Oscar Bele here inside theCUBE, Argoverse e-commerce shop, the beginning of this wave is happening. The convergence of physical virtual is a hybrid mode. It's a steady state. It is not going to go away. It's only going to get bigger, more cooler, more relevant than ever before. This is theCUBE covering it like a blanket here in Monaco, Crypto Summit. I'm John Furrier. We'll be right back after this short break.