Tasked with a mandate to develop a physical front end to the metaverse, purpose-built environments with real-time connectivity to digital worlds and lifestyles, you would be forgiven for thinking you’ve stepped into a parallel universe
Dubai-based HyperSpace is no ordinary start-up. The parks they are developing will bring to life various ‘experience zones’, allowing visitors to discover a variety of fantastical environments, from surrealist playgrounds and built immersive neighbourhoods, to virtual production stages with holographic high-speed supercars and high-end digital fashion using innovative real-time visual effects.
Founder and CEO Alexander Heller told Arabian Business: “The park is very much designed to enhance your digital identity, and that’s the key here, you can come into the park and enhance your digital you.
“You can create avatars; you can create pieces of digital fashion, memes and artworks and pieces of design. You can mint them and what we’ve been able to do here is take away all the complicated elements and confusing elements of blockchain, NFT, metaverse, digital identity, and just make it super seamless, where you’re going to win every time.”
HyperSpace has just recently completed a seed funding round, raising $11M. Led by Introsight and Dubai financier Mohammed Afkhami, and including founder/CEOs Yakir Gola and Rafael Ilishayev of GoPuff, it is one of the largest seed rounds in the Middle East.
And it will go a long way to opening up HyperSpace’s first two venues in Dubai – House of Hype, a 100,000sq ft park in Dubai Mall; and AYA, at Wafi Mall, across 40,000sq ft. Both are set to open in the second half of next year.
Heller explained: “The importance of physical retail is massive in the UAE. I knew this was a market that, number one, would accept it; and that it would celebrate it. Dubai Mall is not going anywhere. If I open this in a mall in LA, maybe they’ll close there in a few years because retail is trending in one direction. But Dubai Mall is like a pillar to society, so I knew that the solidity and the future vision of what we are doing, is very much appreciated here. Dubai always wants to be at the forefront.
