Viewpoints: June 2023 wrap-up

Your monthly summary of metaverse investments and FOV Ventures updates

Welcome to this month’s curated digest of viewpoints, news and investment activity covering the Metaverse, XR and Spatial Computing - brought to you by FOV Ventures. We are covering the main news of June and our brand-new Jobs Board. We will also be looking at:

  • FOV News

  • Portfolio News

  • Funding and acquisitions

  • Data points

/

Dave Haynes, Petri Rajahalme and Sointu Karjalainen (FOV Ventures)

FOV Ventures news

We have a range of great updates for you today, so let’s start with our company-wide updates. First, we’ve launched the FOV Ventures Jobs Board. If you want to raise a job, or look for some particular talent, have a peek here.

From jobs to headsets, what do investors think of the Apple Vision Pro? Listen to Dave Haynes, Amal Dorai, Andreas Klinger and Arian Ghashghai as they explore the potential of the spatial computing device. What do you think of the headset? Vote below!

What do you think of the Vision Pro?

Results will come next edition.

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

Finally, our DVRSTY finalists met in London on June 27th for an exclusive investor dinner. The grand finale of our groundbreaking #DVRSTY campaign. As we look forward to planning the next DVRSTY, we also celebrate Atopia Space, one of our finalists, who won the AWE Startup Competition last month. Congratulations to Annabelle and team!

DVRSTY investor dinner in London.

Portfolio news

Photo credit: Virtex.

  • Virtex hosted the VCT Masters Tokyo in Virtex Stadium, one of Riot Games’ biggest events. It was a first step towards a bigger partnership!

  • GEEIQ's Albane Prioux discussed the inaugural Metaverse Beauty Week for Vogue Business

  • Doublepoint announced their Qualcomm-optimized evaluation kit at AWE.

  • Ready Player Me has built a cross-game avatar platform, offering a new suite of monetization tools and avatar collections.

  • Finally, we're thrilled to share that we've recently invested in Finnish-based Makea Games - they're revolutionizing the gaming world by enabling players to create anything with just their controllers.

Funding and acquisitions

Photo credit: Augmedics.

Apart from the biggest hardware-related announcements this month from Meta and Apple, we saw a smattering of funding announcements across the board. The largest was from Augmetics, who raised $82.5m to grow its business on fixing spines via AR.

Speaking of medical processes, we saw a general trend that focused on the tech behind AR alongside its applications. Medivis raised $20m to enhance surgical navigation with AR, while Squint, which uses AR to improve operations processes, raised $6m. On tech, Swave Photonics raised $10m to develop holographic AR; while Red 6, an AR tech firm closed $70m in funding.

Other than that, we saw a range of differing investments that had no thematic consistency this month. For example, Drest raised $15m in funding to focus on fashion-related metaverse activities, while AvatarLife - a gaming metaverse platform - raised $1.5m in funding. Meshcapade, which is specialised in AI and 3D modelling, raised $6m in funding. Anzu raised $48m for in-game advertising. And finally, if you want to re-enact The Queen’s Gambit, then Anichess, which is making a decentralised chess game, raised $1.5m.

Data points

Image credit: Pexels.

  • $707m — Amount that VCs have invested into metaverse companies in the first half of 2023, according to DappRadar.

  • 0.02C — The temperature decrease by the end of the century if we adopt metaverse-related technologies, according to Cornell University.

  • 80% — Number of businesses who believe the metaverse will have a big impact on their business, according to a study from Nokia and EY. 

Dave Haynes, Petri Rajahalme and Sointu Karjalainen (FOV Ventures)