Quick take:
- Walmart and Outlier Ventures have launched the Store Nº8 Base Camp accelerator.
- The program targets startups focused on Web3 marketing, advertising and payments tech.
- The Store Nº8 Base Camp also announced five startups for its first cohort.
Walmart has teamed up with venture studio Outlier Ventures to launch the Store Nº8 Base Camp accelerator program. The 12-week incubator program has already booked five startups including HypeLab, Reveel, Tide Protocol, Tokenguard, and Unblock, for its first cohort. The startups are mainly involved in web3 marketing, advertising and improving payment technology, among other segments.
Commenting on the announcement, Thomas Kang, VP and GM at Walmart and for the metaverse commerce at Store Nº8 said: “At Walmart, we see the growth and expansion of increasingly immersive virtual worlds as not only a chance to develop new ways to meet and engage with our customers, but also an opportunity to experiment with a new type of commerce.”
This announcement comes on the heels of Walmart’s announcement of a metaverse-based shopping experience, that allows its customers to buy virtual twins of real-life products.
According to Kang, Web3’s ability to connect the digital world to the real world creates an enabling environment for people to connect physical and virtual lives. The company has already launched a roadmap for the next 12 months where it will test a variety of experiences that connect to commerce virtual stores and vice versa.
Ka ng emphasised that the program targets “decentralised commerce”, which he believes will improve experiences for retailers and consumers through web3 innovation.
One of the most popular web3 projects Pudgy Penguins has already demonstrated how web3 startups could create real-life experiences with their current digital IP. Last month, the project, which features 8,888 NFT toys launched its toy line in over 2,000 Walmart stores across the U.S.
Commenting on the collaboration, Outlier Ventures CPO Benjamin Meyer said: “We believe that decentralized commerce offers a significant opportunity to break down commerce into its fundamental elements, transforming it into a more decentralized and adaptable framework of protocols. This shift aims to enhance efficiency, trust, equity and overall user experience for both retailers and consumers globally.”
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