The AVC platform, which is based in Lagos and Accra, is aimed to make it simple for African creators to create, manage, and sell digital art and assets through collaborations with worldwide NFT exchanges. NFTs, for the uninitiated, employ blockchain technology to generate one-of-a-kind, non-replicable digital assets that can be easily stored online and exchanged. Lately, the market is booming. AVC, which is live with artists in Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa with plans to expand across the continent, was founded in 2020 by Eric Utere, known professionally as LeriQ, a Nigerian Grammy award-winning producer and songwriter. The platform is built for creators to grow their brands and reach global markets through NFT technology. The startup recently raised an undisclosed amount of funding to enable growth in onboarding creators, with investors include Kepple Africa Ventures, Cameron Hejazi (CEO of NFT Platform Cent.co) Ronald Chagoury Jr. and several angel investors. “There currently exists extremely high barriers to entry for African content creators into the metaverse. AVC aims to assist content creators create and sell digital assets by providing a seamless and frictionless platform. In addition, we also want to educate content creators on the opportunity to sell digital assets like NFTs,” said Utere. Each creator has a profile on the AVC platform to upload their assets and generate a NFT. Creators can list their NFTs for sale on multiple exchanges which AVC has partnered with, and receive their funds once the NFT is sold. They can also track their sales on their profile. “We intend to create a novel community around AVC creators, members and the public, utilising a token to facilitate a thriving ecosystem,” Utere said. Though AVC is in pre-launch, and pre-revenue, mode, it says it has already engaged with some of the top content creators in Africa. “The goal is to fully secure these content creators as part of the collective now that we have completed fundraising and are about to launch,” said Utere.
