ACE—An NFT Based Funding Platform—Is Giving Talent Their Power Back

Omi Iyamu is a proud Nigerian immigrant with a global perspective growing up in the UK, USA, and Canada. He has 15+ years of experience in the technology industry, including stints in product and engineering roles at Google and Microsoft. He recently left his position as a product lead to launch his 3rd startup, ACE, with his 2 Co-Founders: Darren Moore and Justus Adeleke.

What long-standing problem is your startup ACE (Artist Crowdfund Exchange) positioned to solve? 

We are focusing on unlocking direct funding & revenue opportunities—from fans straight to creators & talent—in the sports & entertainment industry. This is critical, especially for talent in the early and growth stages of their creative projects. Significant problems exist in today’s funding solutions because they’re often indirect, lacking accountability, and one-sided in favor of the business, not the talent. In essence, they’re not tailored for the creatives, and they retain old, predatory contract practices that have no place in today’s world. Solving this problem will level the playing field for funding at all stages of a talent’s career.

What is ACE’s unique value proposition? Why do competing products & services fall short? 

By leveraging blockchain technology and NFTs to form our product stack, we enable a new kind of revenue model never before seen in the sports and entertainment world. When users join ACE, we mint a limited supply of ‘Access Tokens’ unique to them to sell to their fans on our Marketplace. The number of tokens owned by a fan represents different Access Tiers, with the highest tier being the Boss tier (1000 tokens) and the lowest tier being Kittens (only one token). Talent & creators can then publish content marked on ACE by Access Tiers so only those who qualify based on total tokens can see the content. But wait, that’s not all. At any point in time, fans can choose to sell their tokens to other fans and turn a profit based on market demand. In this model, fans never feel locked in and have the freedom to sell at any point.

To show our dedication to being talent-centric, creators gain value not just from the initial sale of their token, but every subsequent time that their token changes hands in a trade, we also provide a 5% royalty back to the talent. This revenue model is a game-changer and a win-win situation for both fans and talent alike. This is why our motto is “Grow Together.”

A core enabler of this platform is the use of non-fungible tokens—NFTs for short. Explain what an NFT is to a 60-year-old with limited digital savvy. 

The best high-level explanation for what non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are is that they’re unique certificates of authenticity and ownership represented in a digital format. The blockchain, an underlying ledger that is accessible to anyone on the planet, keeps a record of these tokens so anyone can keep track of whenever ownership changes.

NFTs have received a tidal wave of attention after Beeple’s $69M art auction and the runaway success of NBA Topshots. What are your plans to capitalize on this public interest with ACE? 

We already are, by introducing and demonstrating other applications of NFTs in a stable and sustainable use case. NFTs are not new; the concept of a non-fungible token has been around for almost a decade. Given its strong coupling to the blockchain, the mass adoption of NTFs was always heavily tied to the general success of blockchain. Since blockchain is now in the mainstream, NFTs and their potential uses are here to stay. The predominant use of NFTs today is in CryptoArt, but this is by no means the only use case, or even the most compelling use case, in my opinion. We are positioning ourselves as a social funding platform tailored for the sports and entertainment industry. As such, we will be introducing new classes of tokens, the first of which being the Access Tokens I described earlier. For the others, you’ll have to stay tuned.

Talk us through the composition of the founding team. What skills sets, backgrounds, and leadership styles exist within the group? 

We are the three amigos leading this misfit. Darren Moore, our CEO, is ex-Navy from Georgetown with a serial entrepreneur streak and an excellent track record of growing companies.

DJ (Justus Adeleke) leads operations as our COO. He’s led both small-scale and massively complex operations across the globe. Without his discipline, we probably wouldn’t know our head from our tail.

As for me, I lead all of Product and Engineering. I am ex-Google, ex-Microsoft, and have a long history of growing and leading technology teams across multiple verticals. I’ve also cut my teeth as a founder, having started two companies before ACE.

If all goes well, where is ACE in 10 years?

If all goes well, I can’t imagine where we will be in 10 years. We often overestimate what we can achieve in one year but underestimate what we can achieve in 10 years.

I hope that in 10 years, we transform how people engage with artists and creators, transfer more control of a talent’s value & success to the hands of their fans, and usher in a new ownership model of creative content that puts the talent first. No more living a life of uncertainty, no more giving up creative direction, and no more predatory contracts. If you are an artist, creative, athlete, or talented creator wanting to build a stronger connection with your fans and supporters, come check us out at www.ace.fan. Our app is in early public beta, so we encourage everyone to provide feedback and help us shape the experience.

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