Rario is a licensed cricket non-fungible token (NFT) company created on the Polygon blockchain. The Indian company makes it possible for cricket fans to receive and trade licensed cricket mementos as NFTs. They have also collaborated with several internationally recognized cricket leagues. Recently, they integrated Polygon’s NFT platform, Polygon Studios.
The CFO of Altcoin Buzz, Shitij Gupta, anchored an AMA session on our Telegram channel with Ankit Wadhwa, Rario founder and CEO. The AMA took place on August 16, 2021, at 10am IST.
Below is a recap of the AMA with Ankit Wadhwa, the founder and CEO of Rario, to understand what the company has been up to recently.
Q – Ankit, tell us a little bit about yourself before we dive into Rario.
Ankit Wadhwa here, CEO of Rario (cricket NFT collectibles). I am a 2nd-time entrepreneur and last ran an e-commerce company that competed with Amazon in the Middle East (wadi.com) as the number two. We exited the company to Carrefour Middle East in 2019, and here we are now, building an NFT business for cricket.
At Rario, we are partnering with cricket leagues, boards, and players globally to build the largest cricket NFT ecosystem. We are backed by top investors like Kingsway Capital, Presight Capital, and have investments from various senior management folks at DST Investments, Thiel Capital, etc. We also have Polygon and Animoca Brands backing us – all with a single mission of building and owning the cricket collectibles space.
Q – Tell us more about these NFTs. What are they? How can one go about collecting them?
Our NFTs are of three types – moments/plays, player cards, and cricket artifacts. We have partnered with every league that has closed partnerships for issuing officially licensed cricket NFTs (Caribbean Premier League – starting on August 26th, Lanka Premier League – due after the World Cup) and many more partnerships are coming.
With these partnerships, we are launching memorable video moments (plays) as collectible NFTs, as well as player cards and artifacts (e.g., stadiums, bats, etc.).
Interestingly, my team was just telling me, with the partnerships we already have, we will be covering exciting moments for over 500 global cricket players.
Q – You are the first project to be launched with support from Polygon Studios. Tell us more about how Polygon Studios is supporting you.
I have had several conversations with Sandeep Nailwal (Polygon) on Rario. We have built a strong partnership together with the goal of winning cricket together. Sandeep is as passionate about cricket as any Indian, and besides the technical excellence of the Polygon network, this really made us want to partner together.
Polygon has recently launched Polygon Studios – a full suite for supporting NFT projects. We are super glad to receive their 200% support on Rario.
Q – Sports NFT platforms are booming, with Dapper Labs launching NBA Top Shot. With Chiliz/Socios, fan tokens are the new hot rage. Even Messi is going to be paid part of his salary at his new club in crypto.
Tell us more about the roadmap for Rario. What are some of the big-name cricketers you have onboarded? And what’s the plan for Rario in the near future?
This covers:
- All the benefits of Polygon – low gas fee, fast transactions, green, and solidity for smart contracts.
- Support on executing meta transactions, so our users won’t even have to pay the low gas fees for minting and transferring NFTs. They will be paid by us through a Polygon Studios-initiated partnership.
- Marketing support.
- UI/UX support.
- … It’s a long list.
Our roadmap has three phases:
- To launch moments (like NBA Top Shot) and give fans a platform to build their collections.
- Launch a marketplace to enable trades while providing helpful info tailored to cricket.
- Launch Rario Club – a fun destination for cricket fans/Rario owners to engage, play, and interact with like-minded people.
In parallel, we are partnering with various boards, leagues, and cricketers. We have already signed with Faf du Plessis, Shakib Al Hassan, Zahir Khan, Smriti Mandana (look her up if you haven’t already, what a class player), and Shafali Verma (also a rockstar player on the Indian women’s team – a true gem).
Many more partnerships are in various phases of discussion and closure. These players will be brand ambassadors of Rario and also have their NFTs on the Rario platform – which becomes even more powerful as we have both (a) licensed media from boards and leagues and (b) players.
All of this is coming together quite well. We launched pre-orders on Rario last night (for CPL moments). We’re expecting to grow incrementally, but two of the three packs sold out very fast.
Q – Cricket has a huge fan following and market. How do we go on about buying the NFTs? Is there a Rario token that can be used for this?
We have built the platform with broader cricket fans in mind. The purchase process is very simple – you can pay with credit cards or crypto.
My goal is to have a fair ratio of cricket fans and NFT buyers on the platform, and we have taken all design decisions for this. For example, our lowest priced packs are packs of 5 silver (common) cards at $10 – affordable and great for building and completing collections. What’s more – the $10 pack has 10% odds of getting 1 gold card, which basically means it’s a $15 value pack on average – this is also to make this exciting for a large market.
Everything is also priced in US dollars, so the excitement goes beyond crypto-enthusiasm into the cricket fan domain. A few people on our channels were, in fact, seeing this as a deal, as most cryptocurrencies are up – so buying in USD makes things cheaper for the day.
The Altcoin Buzz community gratefully thanks Ankit Wadhwa for taking part in the Rario AMA on August 16 on our Telegram channel.
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