HONG KONG, March 6, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Mapxus, the leading indoor mapping technology platform backed by the Japanese corporation Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Hong Kong-based venture capital firm Beyond Ventures, has announced a joint venture with NOIZChain ('NOIZ'), wholly owned subsidiary of a Hong Kong Listed Company Merdeka Financial Group Limited (Stock code: 8163.HK), leading provider of cost-efficient Blockchain-as-a-Service ('BaaS'), to co-create Honio, the world's first indoor location-based Game-Fi metaverse.

Honio is a move-to-earn metaverse that converges art, culture and community. Mapxus has partnered with NOIZ to build spatial digital twins of real-life shopping malls and landmarks in the Honio metaverse, using indoor maps and positioning technology. Honio app users will be rewarded with free art element drops according to the time they spend in physical stores. The longer the user stays, the more art element drops they earn. Furthermore, art elements can be merged into an NFT. Powered by NOIZ's blockchain technology, the metaverse will be able to record all customer transactions. As a result, Honio boosts foot traffic in shopping malls by increasing user retention time in physical stores while enhancing marketing analytics to enable more comprehensive data reports.

To drive the travel economy by connecting the real world via smartphones, Honio is being developed as a mobile app that will enable easy access for everyone. Most metaverses, which can only be accessed via computers, have relatively few active users, i.e., less than 10,000. In view of this, Honio is targeting the smartphone user population to increase accessibility. With the app's country-based feature that maps cities and countries, it is expected to have over 100 million users upon launch.

The Honio metaverse, which integrates a location-based reward system, creator and fan economy, and metaverse commerce, benefits from the instrumental role played by Nfternoon, a digital art specialist company and part of the joint venture. Nfternoon handles creative consultancy on digital creations, including NFTs, AI, and digital visualisation, while providing integrated Intellectual Property (IP) management and marketing for the metaverse. Furthermore, the location-based reward system redirects traffic to malls through the rewards, and the crossover of NFT marketing with IP demonstrates the creator and fan economy, encouraging fans to stay longer at malls to collect NFTs.

Last but not least, metaverse commerce possesses high loyalty value. Through these features, the Honio metaverse can attract more customers, expand markets and reach a large demographic by connecting the virtual and physical worlds.

Keith Chow, Chief Innovation Officer of NOIZ, added, "By 2027, over 40% of large organizations worldwide will be using a combination of Web3, spatial computing, and digital twins in metaverse-based projects aimed at increasing revenue. This presents a great opportunity for Honio to help retail businesses join the metaverse by creating an integration of physical and virtual experiences to retain and attract their targeted customers through metaverse gamification."

Ocean Ng, Founder and Chief Operation Officer of Mapxus, believes that Honio can bring customers back to shopping malls, "As the pandemic is now more stable and travel restrictions are easing, the travel and retail markets have been revitalized. Honio provides a metaverse experience for travel enthusiasts by the time they step into any Honio-supported shopping mall. I believe our metaverse can greatly benefit our shopping mall partners."

Honio currently focuses mainly on the Japanese market with a target to cover around 2,000 landmarks by 2023 and 5,000 buildings by 2024. It is also expected that Honio will be launched in Hong Kong, Taiwan and other Southeast Asian markets by 2024. Further information about the aforementioned markets will be released in due course.

About NOIZ

Established in 2018 and headquartered in Hong Kong, NOIZChain Limited ('NOIZ') is a wholly owned subsidiary of a Hong Kong listed company Merdeka Financial Group Limited (Stock code: 8163.HK). As a Blockchain-as-a-Service ('BaaS') company, NOIZ aims to make blockchain technology widely available for every business and to drive blockchain mass adoption and commercialization.

NOIZ values Environmental, Social, and Governance and has developed an environmentally friendly blockchain known as 'NOIZChain' ('NOIZ Green Chain'), which adopts a proof of capacity consensus mechanism that allows mining devices in the network to use available hard drive space to decide mining rights and to validate transactions. It has also developed a Metaverse and an all-in-one digital wallet on the NOIZ Green Chain.

NOIZ provides tailor-made services to various industries, including international banks, insurance companies, art museums, and advertising agencies, and it is well prepared to expand its business in a fast-growing market.

About Mapxus

Mapxus is a comprehensive indoor Geographic Information System (GIS) platform that provides global indoor mapping and navigation services, aiming to make indoor mapping smart and simple, and to create a barrier-free and inclusive city experience for everyone. With cutting-edge indoor mapping and navigation technology, Mapxus has quickly expanded its service to over 25 cities in the Asia-Pacific region, covering more than 1,500 venues across various building types including retail, universities, transit, and government buildings. Mapxus innovative indoor map data infrastructure is designed to empower people and businesses, improving daily experiences and work efficiency. Mapxus has just raised more than US$5 million from Kawasaki Heavy Industries to build a Japanese indoor map data platform and has received investment from Beyond Ventures in 2019.

Source: NOIZ