Thu 18th Nov
The term ‘metaverse’ has been thrown around a fair bit in the past few weeks, following Connect 2021 in late October. This deeptech itself isn’t a new phenomenon, for instance, in this article it’s argued that Fortnite gave us a taster into what the metaverse could provide us.
The metaverse is a deeper virtual reality experience, where instead of the past focus on simply gaming we shift a focus to also integrating work and non-gaming socialising.
An example of this greater integration into our everyday lives is Barbados hoping to be the first nation with an embassy in the metaverse. We could probably write a whole thinkpiece on the metaverse (Forbes, hit me up), but what’s more relevant is that this is creating a new space for startups. Perhaps, a meta-startup industry. So who’s making some new meta moves?
MakeReal is a UK based studio that creates immersive software for education. It claims immersive education is far more efficient than conventional methods – and boosts some famous clientele such as: McDonald’s, Porsche and Lloyds.
Swedish Scapin’ social communication platform enables you to create a customised virtual space. It has also racked up 2.9 million euros in its seed round in July!
London startup Dubit is using some of it’s £41 million investment for a MGL (Metaverse Gaming League). The intention is to offer a more inclusive environment, compared to traditional professional esports which traditionally hosts exclusively for elite players.
Finally, US based Failed to Render thinks this is all oh so funny. It’s the world’s first professional stand up comedy club in… you guessed it… virtual reality. Now some of you can be unfunny in real life and virtually!
We’ve not sure to what extent the metaverse under Meta will take off. The speculated reason for the name change was to distance, now ‘Meta’, from Facebook related scandals. Is creating its metaverse really the right way to go post-scandal? Likewise, VR has been around for a while, and has never really taken off the way Meta thinks Metaverse will take off. But hey-ho, Robert Metcalfe claimed the internet would collapse in 1996 and yet here we are.