The recent trending shift from Web2 to Web3 has been dominated by Metaverse, NFTs, and Decentralised Finance (DeFi). These three branches of the web3 sector have greatly accelerated the sector’s adoption by providing easy-to-navigate and interesting opportunities to users. To know more about the trending shift from web2 to web3 services, Srajan Agarwal of Elets News Network (ENN), had an interaction with Matthew Graham, CEO, and Founder, Sino Global Capital.
How are Web3 start-ups making a difference in India? And how significantly have they grown so far?
India has emerged as a hub for Web3 advancements with multiple leading web3 firms thriving in this sector along with a vibrant community. We at SGC have closely tracked the development of this sector in India and have hence, also established our own India-focused arm, SGC India, to leverage the advancements, innovations, and solutions presented here.
Web3 in India has disrupted several industries, but has been chiefly dominant in fintech, gaming, entertainment, and content creation facets. Web3 startups in India have seen record funding in 2021 reaching $ 500M+ and the venture capital sector overall tapping in $38.5 billion. Apart from startups being supported through monetary means, India has been very active in terms of fostering Web3 developers and providing open-source resources and opportunities to the visionaries to build their solutions through Hackathons, Accelerators, Workshops, Mentor Sessions, etc.
The industry also provides employment opportunities to technical and non-technical folks and has seen 39 per cent growth over the last five years. We are also witnessing a wave of adoption in India where web3 has disrupted multiple sectors where artists are launching their own NFTs, retail investors are looking at digital investments for diversifying their portfolios, and the gaming sectors are thriving with Play2Earn mechanisms. We also think that the web3 gaming sector with the advent of technologies such as Metaverse, AR, VR, AI< etc, is all set to be the next big thing and have already initiated investments into it to nurture it further.
In what ways does Sino Global Capital emphasise the convenience of the Web Ecosystem with the startups?
Sino Global Capital has been one of the earliest funds into the web3 world as we foresaw its potential into becoming a global technology disruptor and being the next chapter of the technology landscape. Through our expertise and investments, we enable web3 startups to build out their innovations into solutions that can change the existing systems or optimise them further. We frequently collaborate with web3 enablers, incubators, and knowledge platforms that aim to spread awareness and provide the right guidance to web3 founders, builders, and startups.
Our objective is to support the web3 ecosystem and with our recently launched India-focused arm, SGC India, we are moving closer to our goal. We have already kickstarted our India initiatives with SGC India Demo Day where 12 Indian web3 startups with potential Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) had presented their solutions live in Bengaluru, chosen from over 140+ registrations.
What are your future plans to create a road map for a stronger Web3 ecosystem in the next 5 years?
At SGC we are builders at heart and our focus has always been to foster, nurture and be an enabler for builders and founders building world class products. In lieu of this vision we have and will continue to create programmes which would be a catalyst for the web3 ecosystem.
Recently SGC India, a regional arm of SGC conducted a Demo Day in India with a funding pool of over 2 million dollars with our partners to provide projects and founders a platform to showcase what they have been working on. We regularly conduct meetups and networking events which help new, first time and future founders to be able to validate their ideas and get feedback. SGC India launched “SGC India Office Hours” where founders and web3 community can interact with the team and ask them questions regarding web3, ideas, and product feedback on an informal level which aims to create an enabling environment to play around with ideas.
We are also localising our theses and our content. SGC has brought back The Feedback Loop in English and we are in the process of doing the same in local languages where we work to provide insights and educational content to create a repository of knowledge which can help budding founders. We are working on multiple other initiatives and programmes and we at SGC strive to create a safe, inclusive, robust and compliant web3 ecosystem in a collaborative manner to overcome hurdles and foster innovation and development to bring this revolutionary technology to every corner of the world.
What are the recent trends you have seen during the shift from Web2 to Web3 development in India?
The recent trending shift from Web2 to Web3 has been dominated by Metaverse, NFTs, and Decentralised Finance (DeFi). These three branches of the web3 sector have greatly accelerated the sector’s adoption by providing easy-to-navigate and interesting opportunities to users. With the latest hype around the Metaverse, Indian brands and companies have an outlet displaying their digitised products in their own virtual retail stores. We also see web3 startups collaborating with many web2 firms to make the transition smoother and easier for the non-web3 savvy folks.
Also Read | Metaverse: The Future of Digital Business
Additionally, artists and creators have begun to realise the potential behind having another revenue stream that is uninterrupted by middlemen and agents. Artists are hosting their content on these virtual platforms in terms of digital concerts, collectibles, art, etc, and getting their full share of profits as opposed to traditional compensation conditions.
Through the augmentation of DeFi, we have a parallel finance industry that offers users means to diversify their portfolios through digital asset investments, yield farming, trading, etc. DeFi has also found its fit in the gaming sector where Play2Earn mechanisms employ decentralised financial structures for compensation and rewards.
The online gaming industry is already in the midst of considerable augmentation and its growth has been projected to reach $2.8 billion by the end of 2022. Though COVID-19 is said to be the major driver of such growth, blockchain-based gaming has become popular over time and is now changing the landscape of how the gaming industry works. With collectibles and Play2Earn models, the gaming sector has expanded from a means of entertainment to an earning, networking, and collaborating channel.
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