Aave acquires NFT game developer Sonar for Lens social media integration

Aave Companies has acquired Sonar, a mobile metaverse app whose users pilot NFT-linked avatars through digital worlds, with plans to integrate its Lens social media protocol with the platform. Following the acquisition, Lens Protocol will be integrated into a game app with about 20,000 monthly active users.

Software development company Aave Companies announced on Dec. 5 the acquisition of Sonar, a San Francisco-based metaverse developer where players can build worlds and interact with user-created spaces using NFTs.

Aave Companies is the umbrella entity for various crypto projects, including the lending and borrowing protocol Aave, the up-and-coming social platform Lens Protocol and stablecoin GHO.

With undisclosed terms of the deal, the acquisition will see Sonar’s co-founders, brothers Ben South Lee and Randolph Lee, as well as several other team members, join Aave Companies to focus on building social-mobile applications powered by the Lens Protocol, a Polygon-based decentralized social media protocol that lets users store their content as NFTs.

“We love Aave’s approach to social media through the Lens Protocol. It just became clear to us that all the building blocks to truly transform the way we connect online are right there on Lens,” said in a statement Ben South Lee, who is stepping into the role of the Senior Vice President of Product and Design at the Aave Companies.

Launched as a product of Y-Combinator in the summer of 2020, Sonar is an iOS gaming app that allows users to create and discover digital spaces and be part of activities, including listening to music, playing games, and engaging with other users via custom “moji” NFTs available on the Opensea marketplace.

As per Sonar’s website, “mojis are sometimes cute, sometimes weird, but always entertaining collection of playable 3D avatars” that can make friends through voice and text, emote and create worlds with emojis.

Mojis are made up of a body, a mouth, eyes, and accessories and come with a gem that represents the rarity of its combined parts.

Integrating the Lens Protocol into Sonar will help the team to “figure out the right combinations that are approachable and familiar to anyone,” Ben South Lee claimed.

Further, Aave Companies plans to build other Web3 consumer applications that will be launched in early 2023.

This May, Aave launched Lens Protocol on Polygon blockchain, allowing developers to build their own decentralized social media applications and marketplaces where users can control their data. The acquisition helps Lens expand to the mobile application, accelerating its social media product strategy based on the Lens Protocol.