Viewpoints: August 2022 wrap-up

September 05, 2022

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're always on the lookout for fellow investors and founders, so if you find the digest useful, please forward us along!

What have we been up to? Dave Haynes appeared on the AR Show to talk about the importance of timing when hitting the market. We also finished up our first office hours with DVRSTY - see more below...

Dave Haynes & Petri Rajahalme (FOV Ventures)

In this edition:

  • News from FOV Ventures

  • Startups and fundraising

  • What we enjoyed in August

  • Datapoints

News from FOV Ventures

At FOV Ventures we believe that a more diverse set of founders should be building the next wave of the Internet and compute. So we just hosted our first office hours via DVRSTY, a community initiative to help accelerate those founders in creating ambitious new companies within the metaverse and web3. We had 40 founders apply and connected them with investors and operators that included NP-Hard Ventures, Sure Valley, Connect Ventures, Supernode Global, GFR Fund, ImmerseUK, Decentraland and ourselves, FOV Ventures. Look forward to more like this soon.

The AR Show EP. 138 - Dave Haynes (FOV Ventures)

We're big fans of Jason's McDowall industry podcast the AR Show, so were thrilled to be on the show talking about FOV Ventures, our journey of putting the fund together and how we see the XR and Metaverse investment landscape. Listen here

Startups and fundraising

August is typically a quiet month in VC. That said, a flurry of new funding rounds kicked off across the month.

Inworld AI raised $50m in funding, to create AI-driven virtual characters for metaverse-related worlds. To protect its users, Modulate AI raised $30m to improve its tool to detoxify voice chats in virtual worlds. And if you wish to see the action in VR, Condense raised $4.5m in funding to accelerate the development of realtime volumetric streaming.

VR apps continued to see healthy support, too. FundamentalVR raised $20m in Series B funding, to help expand its VR surgery capabilities. Once you are fit and ready, you can sweat it out with IRL Studios, who raised $8m from A16z to further develop Gym Class VR.

Contingent parts of the metaverse also continue to get decent support. Ready Player Me, which has risen rapidly over the last two years, raised $56m in funding. Insomnia Labs raised $1.5m, to expand their advertising services for companies dipping their toes into web3.

MetaWorld Entertainment launched with their seed round and Animoca Brands raised another $100m, with the view of going public in two or three years.

Finally, Nreal - a company specialised in making AR glasses - raised $15m in funding. Remarkably, the Nreal Air is less than 80g, which is an astonishing engineering feat.

What we enjoyed in August

Platform and acquisition news has been light, as the summer months drew executives towards sunny shores and seas. During this time, we read and listened to a few pieces in the sunshine, which we recommend:

  • Mark Zuckerberg's interview with Joe Rogan. The press has taken bits and pieces of the interview, though the full interview is worth a listen. The three-hour deep-dive gives a deep insight into his views on the metaverse, Meta's direction of travel, and general views on how it will develop. Worth a listen during the commute.

  • Matthew Ball summarises the metaverse. In a field with many convoluted definitions and views, Ball gives a distinct and great summary of the field. Worth listening to help communicate a clear definition, or sharing with colleagues to help illustrate what the metaverse is.

  • Fashion and the metaverse. Vogue Business does fantastic pieces on fashion and immersive technologies, and this article is no exception. it explores how, despite the imagination and creativity that comes with virtual platforms, some people still crave realism with their owned items.

Datapoints

That’s all for now. Have a great September, and as always, please do send us your feedback, comments, or any interesting new startups you know of in this space!

Dave Haynes & Petri Rajahalme (FOV Ventures)