Behind the Scenes with LABS Group: Mahesh Harilela, Yuen Wong, Bernard Lau, Willy Sandy Ekaputra
LABS Group has officially launched the world’s first community-owned NFT resort, revolutionizing the world of NFTs! This Behind the Scenes Series will address traditional timeshare pain points and introduce the world’s first value-backed RTS-NFT, which LABS Group believes will open new opportunities in the blockchain industry.
To know some of the exciting information about the latest updates regarding the launch of the very first community-powered and owned NFT Resort, LABS Group invited the major names behind the project to have a little sneak peek, including Hotel experts, Mr. Mahesh Herilela, Mr. Yuen Wong, Mr. Bernard Lau, and Mr. Willy Sandy Ekaputra to share their first-hand experiences, thoughts, and more information about the project.
Mahesh Harilela, Chairman of LABS Group
The Chairman of LABS Group, Mr. Mahesh Harilela is from one of the most prominent families in Hong Kong that own 19 hotel properties globally. Aside from being a hotel property owner, he is also an experienced investor in the hotel property industry and an expert at negotiations and strategic Implementation.
This exclusive interview featured Mahesh talking about LABS Group as a business. He pointed out that their board members have the expertise and a variety of backgrounds, with experiences spanning several different sectors and professions, which gives them the advantage and perfect understanding of traditional business.
He also spoke of the barriers to entry that exist in relation to property ownership. As property prices have risen over the past decade, particularly in Asia, the investment cost has become increasingly prohibitive. In LABS Group, you get to experience investment across dimensions. Mahesh concluded that the barrier to buying property is lowered when tokens and fractions are used to fractionalize real estate.
Yuen Wong, LABS Group CEO
Mr. Yuen Wong is the CEO of the LABS Group and the mastermind behind the first community-powered and owned resort NFT launched by LABS and Gravity Resorts. He focuses on business strategy/development, go-to-market strategic planning, and has been an advisor to many major blockchain projects over the past years.
Yuen gave an overview of LABS Group and what’s driving its phenomenal growth. LABS Group serves as a real estate investment ecosystem. With that, they have the necessary NFT and DeFi building blocks. The team is working to make it possible for ordinary citizens to get involved in real estate investing. According to Yuen, the project is trying to find three different ways to fund their operations: a crowdfunding platform together with a trading platform, a platform that helps people utilize the value of their real estate holdings, and an NFT tied to real estate developments.
In the interview, he also mentioned some information about their partnership with Gravity Resort. He feels that it’s critical to partner with organizations that share the same vision.
He also shared that the LABS Group and Gravity Resorts project would not charge any management fees but would charge a percentage of the profits. Therefore, if the project does not generate profits, they will not profit.
Bernard Lau, CEO and Co-Founder of Gravity Resorts
Mr. Bernard Lau is the CEO and Co-Founder of Gravity Resorts, with 8 years of experience in resort development. He is also the owner of Gravity Property Holdings, which owns and manages 7 properties strategically located across Asia. Aside from that, Lau is also an owner of a Shanghai property management company that oversees 40 residential & commercial properties.
When asked to share some of the details of their resort, Bernard revealed that they are first and foremost a resort development and management company. The resort aims to provide the best experiences to their guests during their stay. Today, what they’ve accomplished is having a community of real estate investors all over the world that are all able to contribute to each and every one of their investment portfolios. As a result, the company can aggressively expand to new locations while adhering to their previous levels of quality and performance.
Willy Sandi Ekaputra, Chief Design Officer
Mr. Willy Sandi Ekaputra is the Chief Design Officer who designed the Kunang Kunang Resort. As the chief designer officer of Gravity Hotel Indonesia, he is an architect with a 1st Class Honours at the Istituto Europeo di Design in Milano and has over 7 years of experience at Studio Air Putih. He has his own unique style of design and is very talented at driving out the essence of the project site through his architects and tailor-made the best fit for the development.
Willy briefly shared what inspired the Kunang Kunang Resort design. Trees are abundant throughout the site, and in addition, it is surrounded by numerous agricultural plots that are great for nature lovers. The site design reminded them of fireflies, and that’s why they selected that concept.
He brought up that the RTS-NFT’s first community-owned and glamping fractionalized resort project can serve as a worldwide symbol for adventure that can be appreciated by many people around the world. He also explained more about the resort’s physical construction.
About LABS Group
LABS is a blockchain-based real estate investment platform looking to simplify investor access and capabilities within the asset class. Using the LABS platform, anyone can easily tokenize and fractionalize their real estate, allowing them to sell or trade it in order to gain instant liquidity. LABS Group also offers a regulated securities market for tokenized real estate trading, a crowdfunding platform, and a lending application that allows for peer-to-peer lending based on the collateralization of tokenized real estate assets. LABS Group is redefining the real estate industry, making it more accessible to everyone.
