New initiative to offer Group-wide services including virtual homes, digital property, digital wearables, and digital jewellery
DAMAC Group is announcing plans to embark into the world of the metaverse and build its own digital cities, becoming one of the pioneers in the GCC to do so. The Group will be run under the banner, ‘D-Labs’, and will be led by Ali Sajwani, Chief Executive Officer of D-Labs and DAMAC General Manager. The initiative forms part of the company-wide ambitions to move into digital assets and non-fungible tokens (NFT), and he is tasked in delivering the organisation’s goal to be a leading global digital brand. The Group plans to invest capital up to US$100 million for the project.
“In an attempt to mould to the progressive trends of business, we are expanding our offerings into the metaverse realm to avail of the many opportunities it presents. We are keen to pioneer the possibilities that the metaverse offers in ways which allow us to be more connected and involved with our customers and their interests. Over the past two years we have been aggressively driving our digitisation efforts, and this new initiative into the metaverse will only further leverage our digital footprint. As well as updating our systems, processes and operations across departments, we have been investing in building a strong team of skilled and talented experts to help support our ambitions of being a digital leader. We plan to continue this exercise, and expand our team and know-how,” said Hussain Sajwani, Founder, DAMAC.
Since last year, the Group’s real estate arm, DAMAC Properties has been offering home buyers a 3D virtual experience that utilises virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technology. This is a stepping stone into the metaverse realm, considered to be a digital universe made up of VR, AR and extended reality (XR) that refers to ‘all real-and-virtual combined environments and human-machine interactions generated by computer technology and wearables’ where users can get the feel of ‘living’ an experience.
Through this move, the DAMAC Group hopes to branch out its services to cater to the needs of the entire Group when it comes to digital assets – ranging from virtual homes, digital property, as well as digital wearables, and digital jewellery through the company’s acquisitions of Swiss jewellers de Grisogono, and Italian fashion brand Roberto Cavalli, respectively. Digital experiences are also part of the offering, where guests will be able to get a virtual treat of the Mandarin Oriental Resort Bolidhuffaru, which is part of the Group’s hotels, resorts and serviced apartments portfolio.
