Fast-growing metaverse studio Karta has announced Tony Barnes, ex-Virgin EMI Records senior director and music industry veteran as its co-founder.
Karta aims to make the metaverse accessible and effective for all brands and across all platforms by connecting brands with billions of people that inhabit the world’s most popular video games and virtual worlds.
Founded in 2021 by Barnes and CEO Erik Londré, Karta has since delivered successful projects across Roblox, Fortnite and Decentraland for companies like Amazon Music, Fnatic, Unilever and Ronald McDonald House.
Tony Barnes, co-founder of Karta commented, “Erik and I started Karta with a simple mission – to help artists and brands connect with the vast number of people that are playing and socialising in video games and virtual worlds. Over the past few years, we have witnessed the growing momentum in cross-industry collaboration between gaming and music.”
“We see a world beyond one-off activations, where artists can harness the metaverse as an evergreen channel to grow and connect with their community. I am so excited to continue building Karta alongside Erik and our incredible team of passionate music lovers and life-long gamers,” said Barnes.
Bringing extensive knowledge to the team
The co-founder is often regarded as a digital-marketing pioneer who has devised award-winning digital strategies, introduced influencer marketing to music campaigns and was among the first music execs to collaborate with and champion Tiktok.
Barnes’ 18-year career in music has allowed him to work on campaigns for hundreds of artists including global superstars Queen, Katy Perry, Sir Elton John, Shakira, Kanye West, Florence & The Machine and Halsey, as well as dance music legends Avicii, David Guetta, Tiesto and Eric Prydz.
Londré said, “The metaverse isn’t a vision of the future, it’s happening right now, and Karta is here to connect artists with their audience and bring them closer than ever before. It is the most exciting collision of music, art, youth culture and technology and we have just scraped the surface of what this will offer the music industry. So having Tony, an incredible marketer and creative that knows the world of music inside and out is extremely valuable, to us but more importantly – our clients.”
Isa Muhammad is a writer and video game journalist covering many aspects of entertainment media including the film industry. He's steadily writing his way to the sharp end of journalism and enjoys staying informed. If he's not reading, playing video games or catching up on his favourite TV series, then he's probably writing about them.
