How Wilder World is moving from one metaverse to another

Web3, decentralised finance, NFTs and VR. It all comes together in the interconnected new metaverse of the future and this former Telstra worker and political adviser is right in the mix.

Andy Lee has established partnerships with multiple Web3 companies to build an interconnected digital world via his startup Wilder World.

When one door closes, another one opens, and if Wilder World’s bet is anything to go by, that door will lead from one metaverse to another.

While Web3 companies race to build the ultimate metaverse, a race that has been likened to tech companies trying to build the ultimate search engine – something Google has already won – other startups are looking beyond building a platform and towards integration.

Andy Lee, a former Telstra worker and political adviser, is among them, having already established partnerships with multiple Web3 companies to build an interconnected digital world that he and the startup he co-founded – Wilder World – see as the future.

“We’re on this journey to the open metaverse,” he says. “We’ve always been skirting towards where the metaverse is when the mainstream arrives.”

What Lee means by that is, not so far from the present, metaverse users won’t be limited to a single metaverse platform but will be able to enter neighbouring platforms through a virtual door.

“Once the interoperability has been built out, you’ll be able to connect into other metaverse projects that you’ve done partnerships with,” Lee says. “That’s what we see as the future.”

Wilder World’s out-of-the-box – or should we say, platform – line of thinking has won the support of some pretty significant US investors, including Barry Silbert, the founder of Digital Currency Group, which owns Coinbase and Coindesk.

Wilder World will turn away from pixelation and 2D and heads toward photorealism, in which real-life images are reproduced as accurately as possible.

Other backers include Yat Siu, the chairman of ASX-delisted company Animoca Brands (swapping stocks for crypto got the company into trouble with inaccurate valuations), and YouTuber turned professional boxer Jake Paul via the venture capital fund he co-founded, Anti Fund. Through token sales, Wilder World has raised a total of $US30 million ($43.25 million).

The platform has even struck a “sister city” agreement with Miami, Florida, that will involve cross-promotion of business and tourism in the metaverse platform’s “Wiami” city, facilitate trade missions, and involve strengthening links between crypto institutions and public organisations.

At home, Lee’s platform is working with the soon-to-launch Australian metaverse platform Illuvium.

The platform was founded by brothers Kieran and Aaron Warwick, whose older sibling Kain Warwick founded Synthetix, a protocol issuing synthetic assets on the Ethereum blockchain.

“You will be able to go into an Illuvium portal and hang out with their community of people,” Lee says. “You will also be able to portal into their world and into their game and that‘s what we mean by open.”

In the Wilder World platform, which describes itself as “an immersive 5D Metaverse built on Ethereum, Unreal Engine 5 and Zero”, a homegrown token by the name of $WILD will be the official currency.

The coin, which valued at $. 3 in mid-June and has a market cap of $25.9 million and a supply of 86.2 million coins, saw an all-time high of $10.82 in November 2021.

$WILD will be used to trade Wilder World’s digital assets, which range from “wheels, kicks, cribs, land, guild, crafts and beats”. These assets won’t simply be on display, they will be fully usable, Lee says:

“We’ll have fully drivable NFT vehicles that you’ll be able to race around for pink slips.”

This line of thinking is but one of dozens of ways companies are looking to integrate experiences and NFTs in the metaverse.

In the past few months, the world has seen the likes of JPMorgan opening a metaverse consulting lounge; ASX-listed cannabis company Creso Pharma launch a virtual facility; and even fast-food OG McDonald’s file a plan to sell food in the metaverse that will be delivered by real-life outlets.

Wilder World has another tool up its sleeve to compete with the world’s mainstream metaverse platforms. Dubbing itself “a new dimension of reality”, it will turn away from pixelation and 2D – used by The Sandbox and Decentraland metaverses respectively – and toward photorealism, in which real-life images are reproduced as accurately as possible.

This can already be seen on the platform, with its realistic yet futuristic digital assets and cities.

Wilder World isn’t alone in thinking this is the future. When Double Trouble Creatives twin-sister founders Colina and Hripsime Demirdjian announced they were building Australia’s first major metaverse earlier this year, they too were looking toward lifelike avatars that would be developed from a single picture.

Lee says when the world was only just learning of Web3 tools and assets, Wilder World was already seriously planning for the future.

“We tip our hat to the OGs such as Sandbox and Decentraland but we’re very big on building an open metaverse, a decentralised metaverse,” he says.

“We knew that De-Fi [decentralised finance], DAOs [decentralised autonomous organisations] and NFTs and VR would converge in the metaverse. And we knew that Web3 DAOs would do to Silicon Valley what Silicon Valley has done to Wall Street.”

The platform’s other co-founder, digital artist Frank Wilder, says it was only a matter of time before digital assets were integrated.

“We really saw this collision course of culture, game, finance and everything else in between as it pertains to Web3,” he says. “We really see the metaverse as kind of the next big thing and the place where these assets actually come to life. We‘ve seen that track for a long time, and it really only makes sense that that is kind of like high-definition, hi-fi experience.”

While Wilder World looks ahead, many metaverse platforms are still racing to be platform No.1.

“Right now a lot of people are still trying to be first to market, as you can see with Meta and so on and so forth,” Wilder says.

“We really believe that these interoperable tools are the one that people will not only want to engage and interact with from a participatory standpoint, but also from an artistic standpoint they will give the richest experience and expression.”