Prerna Gupta Launches An NFT Music Video Platform Backed By A-List Investors

Serial entrepreneur, Prerna Gupta, launches music video NFT social platform, Mysterious, focusing on female, BIPOC and non-binary musicians. Mysterious is launching with a collective of world-renowned experimental musicians including Teebs, MNDSGN, Prefuse73, Mount Kimbie, Shigeto, Lotic, Laurel Halo, Kara-Lis Coverdale, Aya, Beatrice Dillon, Actress, Astrid Sonne, Alam Khan, Kali Malone and others. Gupta is no stranger to bringing underrepresented storytellers to the forefront and with Mysterious her hope is to empower these musicians, who don’t typically get fair exposure or pay, through NFT’s. The platform’s genesis drops will be music video NFTs, limited supply, 60 seconds or less, priced at 0.1 ETH. Purchasing a Mysterious music video NFT will be a ticket into the artist’s exclusive community. In addition to owning the music video NFT collector purchases, it will also give them access to intimate music gatherings, firesides with our artists, exclusive servers and secret drops.

Mysterious has also received investment from A-listers such as Mariah Carey, LeBron James, Jamie Foxx, Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, Ashton Kutcher (Sound Ventures), Max Martin, Savan Kotecha, Sandeep Nailwal & Polygon Studios, Anjula Acharia, Chernin Group, WME / Endeavor, SV Angel, A Capital, Founders Fund, Greylock and many others. “Prerna is one of the most exciting founders to work with as an investor. She is constantly breaking the mold and finding innovative ways to power the creator economy and create wealth opportunities for female/non-binary/BIPOC artists,” said investor, Anjula Acharia. “Mysterious will introduce a complete paradigm shift in our culture to fix what has been broken by social media, and create a new future for creators and consumers alike.”

Gupta’s idea for Mysterious sprung out of a trend she saw from her other company, Hooked. “The idea came from what we’re seeing with Hooked – we have seen that literally billions of people around the world are craving more meaningful artistic experiences in their social media feeds. When you show people thoughtful art in their feeds, they stop and pay attention. But the problem is that creators can’t earn enough from ad revenue to sustain creating thoughtful art. Thoughtful art takes time to develop,” she explained. “And so we’re all collectively stuck in a warped social media vortex – where creators are forced to churn out low-quality content to eek out a living, and consumers are addicted to feeds dominated by selfie culture that makes them miserable. Web3 offers us an opportunity to create a new kind of social media culture, where creators have the time and space to create art people are willing to pay for, and consumers can focus on content that brings them joy.”

Gupta believes music videos that music videos will also be what brings mass audiences into web3. “Music Videos are the cultural currency of our time – it’s how we establish and share culture around the world. It’s not a coincidence that all major entertainment platforms – MTV in analog, YouTube in web1, and TikTok in web2 – got their start with music videos.” In an ad-driven everything on social media, NFTs could be the solution to providing artists with a living wage. Gupta shared that there are 8 million artists on Spotify with less than 0.1% of them being able to earn a living wage from their streams.

”The ad-optimizing algorithms of web2 platforms have built a culture where only a handful of creators who amass billions of followers reap all the rewards. That means the only type of content that is financially viable is the lowest common denominator content that appeals to mass audiences. That has led to a monoculture – where only a few voices, a few faces – are what everyone hears and sees. Take a look at any of your social feeds today – Instagram, Twitter, TikTok – and you’ll notice that you’ll just keep seeing the same handful of people, again and again, posting the same type of anodyne content again and again,” shared Gupta. “Web3 will be a paradigm shift in culture and will give rise to a new social media that celebrates diversity and elevates unique art. NFTs will flip this model on its head, by lifting up creators from diverse backgrounds, with unusual voices and aesthetics, and giving them the ability to build tight-knit communities of true fans who value their art enough to pay for it. We know from our data with Hooked that there is worldwide demand for art from diverse creators, and we want to be the platform that brings diversity into web3.”

Beyond music videos over the next several months, Gupta will be rolling out community features that empower Mysterious creators to build intimate relationships with their fans. Over time, the platform plans to expand beyond music into other types of short-form video, including scripted.