The Splice 🧬 How a Virtual Influencer Helped Score a $20M Investment
Good afternoon!
Welcome back to The Splice 🧬 by VirtualHumans.org: a weekly newsletter curating the latest news, developments, and insights in the virtual influencer space.
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🧬 Core Strands From This Week
ROBLOX Game ‘Splash’ Raises $20M to Grow Virtual Celebrity Kai, and More
🔎 The Synopsis: Hit Roblox music game ‘Splash’ recently raised a $20M Series A investment to create more virtual influencers (alongside their current star, Kai) and expand their Roblox music map.
🧬 The Splice: Kai is a perfect example of the immense value a virtual influencer can add to any game or company. Splash was a popular game, but Kai cultivated a dedicated community of fans and creators who truly brought Splash to the next level.
Essential Reading On Virtual Influencers
Many people confuse virtual influencers with VTubers and vice versa. To keep things clear, we created this guide to digital beings with definitions pulled from our glossary.
Why Storytelling Can Make or Break a Virtual Influencer
Once you create a digital character, the next step is to bring them to life. Social-first storytelling is the secret ingredient to virtual influencer success.
Create Celebrities, Create Jobs
Learn how virtual influencers build off and innovate the traditional celebrity star system while cultivating a new class of industry jobs in this article by VirtualHumans founder Christopher Travers.
4 Reasons Brands Love to Work with Virtual Influencers
After a virtual influencer has established their character and fan base, the next step is to partner with a brand that can creatively take advantage of those features.
🔭 What We’re Looking At This Week
NFT Makers Are Trying to Build the Next Disney
🔑 Key Quote: “Because each NFT avatar is unique, buyers can also forge a connection with a genuinely (if only slightly) one-of-a-kind character. Some NFT buyers make fan art of their purchases, while others spin entire independent stories around them like Jenkins the Valet, a character built around a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT.” — Adi Robertson
🧬 The Splice: The evolution of Jenkins from a single Bored Ape NFT into a full-fledged virtual character with a fictional backstory (and now a book deal, as well) is an excellent example of the same social-first storytelling format many virtual influencers use today.
Could NFTs become the new class of virtual influencers? Only time will tell, but you’ll be the first to know.
Best,
VirtualHumans.org
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Insights by Makena Rasmussen, and Christopher Travers