Swaray Inc. (“Swaray” or the “Company”) is a social video interaction platform and NFT marketplace for Content Creators and their Fans. Swaray's initial target market consists of College and University Athletic Departments, Teams, Athletes and their die-hard Fanbases given the recent change to NCAA rules that finally allows Athletes to monetize their Name, Image and Likeness (NIL). The Swaray platform allows Athletes, and a myriad of other people of influence (collectively, “Content Creators” or "Creators") to build rich experiences, collaborate, interact and connect with Fans (“Fans” or “Users”), share content, and monetize their fame on their own terms. The easy creation of fan pages (“Fan Pages”) and video chat room events (“Events”) provides Creators with a means to monetize their interactions, content, collaborations, and sponsorships, while Fans are rewarded with intimate access to Creators and community interaction with other Fans, all through an intuitive, delightful, shared, two-way video content experience.
Swaray’s intuitive content/experience management and monetization platform delivers video, audio, and text-based content for both active and passive Fans alike. Fans can jump from Event to Event as passive viewers or engage deeply in face-to-face video chat-based conversations with both Creators and other Fans. Events can be set up to deliver audio or video chat-based content and interactions, but Fans can always determine how they want to interact – via audio, video, or text-based chat. Swaray delivers on the promise of “Your Platform, Your Way” for Fans and Creators alike.
Swaray’s social mission is to empower athletes of all background and sport of choice to take control of their financial future and control how, when, where and how much they are paid for their Name, Image and Likeness without reliance on hard-to-secure sponsorship, advertising and promotion deals. The 2021 elimination of the NCAA rule prohibiting amateur athletes (high school and collegiate) from being paid for their NIL has opened up a wide variety of monetization opportunities for amateur athletes, yet there has not been a platform that easily facilities that monetization, until now. Swaray allows Fans and school alumni (“Boosters”) to donate at the high school, college, university or team level (indirect payments to Athletes) or to purchase content from Athletes directly, while providing schools with payment transparency and tax/compliance reporting functionality.
Swaray utilizes two unique means of acquiring users. First, Creators are able to sell permanent, tradeable, unlimited membership rights to all their content and Events in the form of non-fungible tokens (“NFTs”) which can be minted and freely bought, sold and resold on the platform with 10% of the proceeds of every resale being paid to the Creator and 10% to the Company. In addition, Creators are able to provide Users with promotion codes (“Promotion Codes”) that entitle the recipients access to the application where they are granted 500 free in-app currency tokens (“Swaray Tokens”) ($5 value - $.01/Swaray Token)) upon registration that can be used to purchase premium content from any Creator of their choice. In both cases, Creators have an immediate opportunity to monetize their already in-place Follower audience and their unique content by inviting their Fans to join Swaray. This “Creator Push-Content Pull” functionality allows Swaray to rapidly increase application downloads, daily/monthly active users (“DAU/MAU”) and in-app purchases of addition Swaray Tokens in a much more rapid, viral fashion.
The Revenue Model
Unlike other social media platforms that focus on advertiser-driven revenue models or rigid user subscription models, Swaray focuses on monetizing access to the Creator’s fame and content first. On Swaray, Creators are in total and complete control of how they charge for and deliver their unique content. Whether selling permanent seat licenses to all their content and Events in the form of NFTs or selling ad-hoc or recurring subscription access to their Events via Swaray Tokens, Creators merely pay a fee upon withdrawl of their earnings, with 90% of the revenue passed on to the Creator. The Swaray platform is meant to merely be a content delivery platform that allows Creators to monetize their fame and content, not an advertising-driven platform that pays the company and platform first and the Creator second.
NFTs on Swaray are initially listed and sold at prices set by the Creator, with subsequent resales occurring via multiple-day auctions resulting in demand-driven price increases or decreases that are fully transparent and openly reported to all Users. Creators receive 90% of the initial sale price of their NFTs and 10% of any subsequent resales, while the Company receives 10% of any sale price. Swaray Tokens are sold to Users at approximately $.01 per token based on dollar amount purchased ($5/500 tokens vs. $50/5250 tokens), but in all cases Creators receive $.009/Swaray, with the Company retaining any net spread between User purchase price and Creator redemption price.
Management Team
Ryan James is a Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Swaray and a proven media entrepreneur, product innovator and operational leader with 13 years’ experience driving the vision, roadmap and business success for consumer facing products that actively delight millions of monthly users. He holds an MBA in Design Strategy and has a track record leading creative and business teams to build award winning video products with multiple exits. His experience includes working for HP as a product manager, cofounding a creative agency, Focus 4 Design (Exited), social video platform Gaffidi, Inc. and video distribution and monetization platform Unreel Entertainment (Acquired).
Michael Mannarino is a Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Swaray. An engineering leader, Michael has over 20 years’ experience leading, guiding & collaborating with multicultural onshore/offshore software engineering teams, product & cloud architecture, continuous deployment & delivery. Mr. Mannarino has a unique capability to both engage and manage C-Level/Board/Investor relationships and present, articulate and translate complex technical requirements & deliverables in simple terms. Michael has in-depth experience in planning, designing, building and optimizing full stack applications, distributed platforms and APIs, product & software development, blockchain DApps, smart contracts & DLT, payment transactions/networks/rails, open-source agile development, hybrid cloud arch + eng, CI/CD DevOps and technology budgeting. As a hands-on engineering and product leader, Michael has worked on, launched products, and/or built teams at companies like Equteq, PayPal, VM Ware, Expedia and Ovis News.
John A. Hamel is a Founder and Chief Operating Officer at Swaray, having architected Swaray’s initial product with a vision to build a social video shared experience application. Presently, Mr. Hamel is an Executive Vice President of Finance and Capital Markets at Prime Choice Funding, Inc. Prior to Prime Choice, John was the President of Refi.com, LLC, Founder and CEO of Solstice Closing Solutions, LLC and Executive Vice President of First Direct Lending, LLC. During the 18 years prior to First Direct, John held various Investment Banking positions with Sterne Agee & Leach, Friedman, Billings, Ramsey (“FBR”) and Financial Technology Partners, all focused on advising and raising capital for banks, financial services companies, and financial technology firms. Mr. Hamel graduated with an MBA in Finance from New York University’s Stern School of Business and a BS in Business Entrepreneurship from the University of Southern California.
Elliot Hasse is a Founder of Swaray and has been responsible for Product Design and Marketing. Mr. Hasse is presently the Head of Creative at Guest House with an option to join Swaray full-time upon completion of an institutional capital raise. Prior to Guest House, Elliot was the Design Director at Blinkr, the Senior Art Director at Factory Design Labs and on the Interactive Design Team at Crispin, Porter & Bogusky. Elliot is an award-winning designer having won The Fifty Award from the Denver Ad Club for campaigns with both Callaway Golf and Odyssey Golf with numerous successful marketing and product design campaigns to his credit.
Michael Harrison is Swaray’s Vice President of Athlete Business Development. Mr. Harrison is an active collegiate and professional registered agent with the NBPA and NFPA who founded Harrison & Associates. Michael has negotiated millions of dollars in broadcast, coaching and player contracts and endorsement agreements throughout his career and has been instrumental in securing player, coach and team commitments to join the Swaray platform upon launch. Prior to founding Harrison & Associates, Michael held positions at the Detroit Pistons, the University of Michigan and the University of Massachusetts. Mr. Harrison received an MS in Sports Management from Amherst and graduated with a JD from Loyola Law School.
More Information
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https://swaraylabs.com/
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