Roham Gharegozlou #89

Founder and CEO of Dapper Labs

Roham Gharegozlou & Founder and CEO of Dapper Labs & background` Roham Gharegozlou & Founder and CEO of Dapper Labs & poster`
Roham Gharegozlou & Founder and CEO of Dapper Labs
Category NFT
person-quote
2021 is the year Web3 and the open Metaverse became inevitable.

Biography:

Roham Gharegozlou is an entrepreneur who was born in Iran and spent his childhood in Dubai, Paris and Canada until he settled in California. There, he obtained a bachelor’s degree in economics and a master’s degree in biological science.

Gharegozlou formed his first startup when he was only 14, and in 2013, he co-founded Axiom Zen, an award-winning innovation hub specializing in developing new platforms and emerging technologies like blockchain and artificial intelligence. In 2018, from the stems of Axiom Zen, he founded Dapper Labs, a blockchain and software development company. Dapper Labs is the company behind blockchain-based game CryptoKitties, which raised $12 million in funding from storied venture capital firms like Andreessen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures. 

After launching the Flow blockchain in 2019, Dapper Labs created NBA Top Shot, its most successful product so far. NBA Top Shot is a marketplace for National Basketball Association fans, who can build a digital collection featuring their favorite players, and for NBA associates, who can count on a new revenue stream. One of the first highly popular nonfungible token, or NFT, collectibles was Lebron James’ dunk tribute to Kobe Bryant, which was memorialized as an NBA Top Shot “Moment” that drew 400,000 people to the platform simultaneously.

Gharegozlou is also an angel investor who has helped build over 19 different companies and was included in Technology Innovators’ “Top 25 BlockchainTechnology CEOs of 2020” list.

Gharegozlou’s 2021:

In 2021, the idea of a “metaverse” started to enter the mainstream, and Gharegozlou mentioned that it could be a big part of Dapper Labs’ roadmap. He wants the company to build an open, decentralized metaverse, as opposed to closed-off platforms such as Oculus or Roblox. 

Improving Flow’s blockchain scalability and usability was a primary focus of the year: Trading cards like NBA TopShot Moments require scalability and a user-friendly application. Flow was designed to be fast, scalable and cheap through its native FLOW token, and the creators believe that if it can easily handle NFTs, it will undoubtedly have a role in the metaverse.

Dapper was valued at nearly $8 billion by the end of 2021 following multiple investment rounds and employs hundreds of people across its multiple product lines, which include Flow, the Dapper wallet, NBA Top Shot and a growing number of other sports products, including projects with the National Football League, the Women’s National Basketball Association and the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

Gharegozlou’s 2022:

Under Gharegozlou’s leadership, Dapper Labs’ roadmap for 2022 includes further development on NBA Top Shot, bringing supply and scarcity, more metaverse engagement, and improved user experience to the platform. NBA Top Shot grew its user base to over 1 million in 2021, and it is expected that Gharegozlou will aim to replicate that level of growth in 2022.

Dapper Labs is expanding on every front, including creating a decentralized autonomous organization through the acquisition of influencer platform Brud. The company will help build online communities that can vote on important matters through ownership tokens, including funding investments and governance.

Partnering with Spanish soccer league LaLiga was also a significant achievement of 2021 that will offer Dapper Labs the chance to develop new sports services on the Flow blockchain this year. LaLiga includes blue-chip clubs like FC Barcelona and Real Madrid CF that have massive worldwide followings. Gharegozlou is likely to also expand Dapper’s reach with the worlds of music and entertainment.

The metaverse will be a major focus for Dapper Labs this year, but it will present one main challenge: building an open metaverse with digital lives managed by transparent, open blockchain software, not private servers.