Ikonz, an Indian metaverse incubator, has secured undisclosed seed funding from Village Global, an early-stage venture capital firm, and Woodstock, a technology investment firm.

The money raised would be used to hire top tech personnel and ramp up artistic talent from around the world, as well as drop non-fungible tokens (NFTs) from its IP partners.

Microsoft's Bill Gates, Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, LinkedIn's Reid Hoffman, Google's Eric Schmidt, Disney's former CEO Bob Iger, Bloomberg's Mike Bloomberg, and VMware's Diane Green, among others, have invested in Village Global.

Abinav Varma Kalidindi, CEO of Ikonz, said, “It’s heartening to see that a fund backed by the world’s top tech icons, who have a cumulative net worth of over $400 bn and whose companies’ market caps exceed $5.5 tn (Meta, Microsoft, Google and Amazon), has decided to fund us at an early stage.”

Ikonz, founded by Abhinav Varma Kalidindi in August 2021, wants to increase IP aggressiveness by bringing together 50 percent of India's premium entertainment IPs under one roof during the next 12-18 months.

This means that the business is pursuing not only actors, sports, and other celebrities, but also social media celebrities, content providers, and even media companies that specialise in rights ownership.

Ikonz is supported by actor-investor Rana Daggubati and Prasad Vanga, the founder of Anthill Ventures.

Amar Chitra Katha and Tinkle are among the notable IPs that the business has on boarded. According to its website, “We’ve partnered with Amar Chitra Katha, Suresh Productions and more to bring all your favourite characters into the metaverse.”

The Amar Chitra Katha library has titles in epics and mythology, history, fables and humour, bravehearts, visionaries, and ACK Junior in 20 languages.