Former Disney chairman and CEO Bob Iger is putting his name and money behind a new company that’s aiming to dominate the future of the internet and the metaverse.
On Monday, 3D avatar start-up Genies announced that Iger is joining its board of directors and investing an undisclosed sum in the Los Angeles-based company. Founded in 2017, Genies’ mobile app allows users to create their own custom digital avatars – three-dimensional cartoon versions of themselves – for their social media profiles and, eventually, to travel the metaverse.
Genies allows customers to create digital avatars and virtual fashion lines for Web3 — tech jargon for a new version of the internet based on blockchain technology.
Iger was CEO of Disney for 15 years before becoming executive chairman in February 2020. At that time, Bob Chapek became CEO. This investment is among the first of Iger’s post-Disney endeavors.
Iger retired from the company at the end of last year after a career of making key acquisitions — including Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm — that made Disney a dominant force in entertainment and later a major player in streaming with Disney+.
“I’ve always been drawn to the intersection between technology and art, and Genies provides unique and compelling opportunities to harness the power of that combination to enable new forms of creativity, expression and communication,” Iger said in a statement.
“After spending the last few months getting to know Akash and learning more about Genies, I am very excited about his vision and how it will be fulfilled and I look forward to working with the entire team.”
With talk of both the metaverse and web3 (a buzzword closely associated with crypto technology), Genies is trying to position itself as the future of online identity, whether that future is in virtual worlds or on the blockchain … or both. The hope is that after users create their avatar, it can be used everywhere and in every app (or virtual world).
Just before Iger stepped down from Disney’s board in December, Iger spoke with CNBC about how new technologies regularly disrupt the ways that media giants like Disney tell stories – perhaps more so now than when he took over Disney in 2005.
“In reality, that scenario of a world in which technology’s enabling more storytelling exists today probably even more so,” Iger said.
Since stepping down, the former Disney executive has hinted at his interest in the evolution of the internet – sometimes called “internet 3.0” or “Web 3.0” – and the concept of a metaverse. In January, on Kara Swisher’s “Sway” podcast, Iger said the next iteration of the web “will definitely be more compelling in experience, certainly more immersive, more dimensional.”
