Launchpool Labs Founder Spotlight
Interview with Jay Ess from Ozone Metaverse
Welcome to the Founder Spotlight series, where we interview Founders from the projects we incubate at Launchpool Labs. What to expect: fun stories, founder journey, the team, vision, mission, goals, and what’s in the works. None of the information shared is financial advice, and should not be treated as such.
Ozone Metaverse is a proprietary engine empowering the world to build quality Web3 metaverses at scale. Ozone integrates multi-chain, such as Solana, Flow, and Ethereum, via simple, no code, no limits technology.
We’re excited to announce that Ozone is joining us as an Incubee in Launchpool Labs’ community-centric chain agnostic incubator — as announced recently on Cryptoslate (Dec. 9th, 2021). Currently, Ozone Metaverse is raising seed ($400k), available exclusively to investors part of the Launchpool Labs Bronze Club. Enjoy this interview with Ozone Metaverse Co-Founder and CEO, Jay Ess.
Roxana: Hi, Jay. We are very excited to have you and your team be a Labs Incubator star. Please tell us a little about yourself, how you met your team, and how Ozone Metaverse came to be.
Jay: A couple of years ago, I asked myself the genesis question: “Why not browse the web like a video game?” back then me and my co-founder Oleksiy, “Mr. O ‘’ used to live in Silicon Valley. I called him and asked him about how we could make a 3D internet experience. The rest is history.
Roxana: What makes you really proud about your team? Can you share some funny habits / stories / hobbies that your team members have?
Jay: Yes. Our team is really amazing. One interesting thing is we have always worked remote and have built amazing relationships although we never met in person. My Co-founder and I started in the Silicon Valley, but he almost immediately moved to North Carolina and I to Colorado and haven’t met in person ever since! Talk about decentralization!
He loves snowboarding. I am a huge music and art fan. Needless to say we use lots of emojis in our distributed asynchronous communications :). Also, we operate 7 days/ week.
Roxana: Name some of the things you absolutely love about your industry, and some of the gaps you found (I assume this is what made you launch Ozone Metaverse).
Jay: This is a great question. We sit at the intersection of Gaming and Internet technologies. And we love both very much! What would the world be without gaming or without the internet?
But, we saw that gaming 3D graphics tech was living in its own ecosystem, and so did internet technologies. We work hard everyday to fuse them both into a true metaverse. The best gaming technology merging and providing a new layer on top of the internet.
Roxana: What has been done so far? I know it’s early on to mention partnerships, so please focus on the product journey so far. Lessons learned, exciting things that happened, which are worth mentioning.
Jay: We spent a lot of time and effort on the 3D graphics engine. The OZONE METAVERSE, as you know, Roxana — is the Engine to empower the world to own their metaverse. So lots of amazing work has been done to build the “game engine Core”. Also this year, we have brought in cross-chain capacity with some unique blockchain engineering. You may know we hosted the virtual burning man last year as a beta and are currently working on the metaverse version of the city of Miami with our partners XRMIAMI. Much more to share, but will leave it there for now.
Roxana: What made you go multi-chain? We see Solana, Flow, and ETH as your protocol choices. Why did you choose these three?
Jay: First and foremost, we want to support and empower various communities. Second, we know most applications out there are limited to only one blockchain, so we wanted to innovate. Lastly, as we aim to provide the highest scale possible, supporting multiple technologies seemed the right choice to make in order to support our users and partners.
Each blockchain offers advantages, why not get the best of all worlds?
Roxana: Where do you need most help from our Launchpool & Labs community?
How can the community get involved? Do you have plans for perks and rewards, metaverse products, or NFTs that could give the community a “taste” of what’s in store?
Jay: Oh yeah! We are going to need all the help we can get. As we are the engine instead of the application (meaning we are here to help everyone get their own metaverse, rather than building our metaverse), we need guidance from the community on what is needed most. The Launchpool community will be the very first to access our solutions and as such will be a tremendous resource for feedback and requests on how we can improve.
We are discussing a lot of utility benefits for our token holders and of course perks. Stay tuned for announcements.
Roxana: Let’s talk about funding. Since you’ve already completed your pre-seed prior to joining the incubator, what happens once the seed raise is complete? Will there be a private raise, pre-IDO, IDO etc?
Jay: Yes. We intend to do a private and strategic round before we go live on an exchange. Looking forward to finding the best exchange partner in the network to host our initial liquid market.
Roxana: Let’s talk about pre-incubation. How was the company funded prior to joining Launchpool Labs? Tell us a bit about your advisory board too.
Jay: We self funded and got a couple of angels to bootstrap us this far. Also, some paid customers provided capital to support our burn rate. Our crypto advisory board is made up of Paul Gordon, Neil Rankin, and Richard Simpson all very accomplished crypto professionals in their own rights and we are very lucky to have them on board. More advisors will be onboarded as we continue to grow worldwide.
Roxana: What made you want to work with us? We believe that startups choose their incubation partners just as much as incubators choose their incubation stars.
Jay: Launchpool Egalitarian Investing thesis and their vibrant ecosystem made them our top choice. We also have a great relationship based on making the project succeed and deliver the ultimate utility and functional metaverse experience. We know Launchpool and its community are committed to build the future of crypto and web3.
Roxana: Where from here? Tell us a bit about your future product roadmap, highlights, if there is anything available at this point.
Jay: Lots of stuff, Rox. But let’s just say that the metaverse system is ready to be launched in Q1 next year fully integrated with our NFT engine and cross chain utility. Keep an eye out for announcements and demos from our R&D lab.
Roxana: Where can we find you, on the web? Please also share any bragging rights.
Jay: ozonemetaverse.io on the web. Any social media @ozonemetaverse.
As far as bragging rights, let’s say we are proud of our partnership with Launchpool and Launchpool labs and to be on the cutting edge of both metaverse and crypto tech.
Roxana: Thank you for your time, Jay, looking forward to working with you and the Launchpool Labs community for the raise & launch.
Jay: Thanks for having me, Roxana.
About Ozone Metaverse
Proprietary engine empowering the world to build quality Web3 metaverses at scale. Ozone integrates multi-chain, such as Solana, Flow, and Ethereum, via simple, no code, no limits technology.
Discord Community — Dedicated Labs #ozone-metaverse Channel — Twitter — Website
About Launchpool Labs
#beyourownVC with Launchpool Labs! Join the Launchpool Labs Investor Club, and get access to off-the-market exclusive allocations in the projects we incubate every quarter. Access offers with your NFT membership card (Bronze, Gold), stake $LPOOL, and mine an allocation. High risk — high reward.
Launchpool Labs is a chain agnostic incubator for teams, builders, universities, & developer hubs, where teams can build MVP (minimum viable product) and MVC (minimum viable community).
Website — Twitter — Telegram — Discord — Medium — LinkedIn — Litepaper
