Unusual enters JV to expand into NFT market

CATALIST-LISTED Unusual Limited on Friday (Nov 26) announced its wholly-owned subsidiary Unusual Development has entered into a joint venture (JV) with Season Culture and an unnamed third party angel investor to expand into the "fast-growing" non-fungible token (NFT) market.

The company said the JV will incorporate a new entity called FunBase, in which Unusual will hold a 30 per cent equity interest in, with the option to increase its stake to 51 per cent over the next 3 years.

NFTs will be a gamechanger in the live events space, noted chief executive officer of Unusual, Leslie Ong.

Ong said artists and organisers are no strangers to NFTs and "have started to embrace the technology to also create NFTs of their own for their fans".

"Our future events will have expanded offerings in the form of NFTs in various formats such as special edition event collectibles, digital tickets, audio video assets, etc," he added.

The JV will help Unusual build and grow an interactive fan-based community of NFT related events which also serves as an alternative distribution channel for future product innovation, Ong added.

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Unusual and Season Culture have "extensive experience and access" to performing artists and talents across China, Korea, Taiwan, Macau, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore. This will help the JV to explore multiple applications of NFTs, the filing noted.

Reuters had reported in July that NFTs have gained tremendous popularity, with global sales of NFTs surging to US$2.5 billion in sales in H1 2021, up from US$13.7 million a year ago.

Unusual also pointed out that several world-renowned artists, such as BTS, Grimes and Rolling Stones, have adopted NFTs, selling tokenised versions of their music tracks or virtual and real-world merchandise to generate fan loyalty and revenue.

Shares of Unusual were up 8.4 per cent or S$0.012 to S$0.155 as at 2.14 pm on Nov 26.

Read more: 

• Unusual posts net loss for H1 FY2021 amid pandemic disruption

• Brokers' take: RHB downgrades UnUsUaL to 'neutral', says recovery not yet imminent

• UnUsUaL keeps faith in live events