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- Viewpoints: August 2023 wrap-up
Viewpoints: August 2023 wrap-up
Your monthly summary of metaverse investments and FOV Ventures updates
Sointu Karjalainen, Petri Rajahalme & Dave Haynes
September 07, 2023
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.
FOV Ventures news
Reader poll
Portfolio news
Hiring
Funding and acquisitions
Data points
Dave Haynes, Petri Rajahalme and Sointu Karjalainen (FOV Ventures)
Reader poll
Last week, we asked readers which event our readers will be going to. 66% of readers are thinking of heading to AWE EU in Vienna. See you there! We;’ll be helping to judge this year’s startup track. We’re also organizing a special event the evening before Slush (28 Nov), so mark your calendars accordingly! More information coming in next month’s newsletter.
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FOV Ventures news
We have two pieces of news. First, please say hello to Tiago Teixeira Correia, our new EIR! Tiago co-invested with us whilst at Warner Music Group and spent time as an operator at portfolio company Move.ai. He’ll be with us for the rest of 2023, supporting our growing portfolio and deep diving into a few important themes for us including Transmedia, GenAI x Metaverse and the gamification of education. Stay tuned.
Second, we invested in Atopia Space! In short, Atopia is the beautiful and value-driven metaverse for the arts, focused on museums, galleries, concert houses, operas and theatres. Atopia fits in the heart of our portfolio at FOV Ventures, and we welcome the team into our world.
Portfolio news
Scenario announced their Unity plugin.
Move.AI CEO and Co-Founder Tino Millar spoke to VentureBeat about how Move AI is making mocap more accessible in the film industry.
Virtex has been hosting its Valorant watch parties. Check it out here.
Portfolio companies are hiring
Move.ai is hiring a Head of Finance.
Atopia Space is looking for a Senior 3D/Unity Artist.
Makea Games is looking for a Level Designer.
Explore more opportunities at jobs.fov.ventures.
Funding and acquisitions
August was a quieter month for investments in this space. Some of the more notable investments included ShapesXR, who raised $8.6m in funding to grow its XR prototyping platform, while Windup Minds raised $1.6m in funding to make a virtual creature experience. GoStudent raised $95m, partially to help build its immersive tech capabilities. Training solutions saw interest, too. Hologate raised €8.3m to expand its XR training solutions, while Laurentian raised $1.2m to build its virtual learning capabilities.
Data points
47%: Percentage of Roblox spenders that come from the USA.
$500bn: Amount the metaverse will be worth by 2030, according to Bain & Company.
20m: Number of virtual units sold by Bomb Pop - an ice cream company - within a Roblox activation.
Dave Haynes, Petri Rajahalme and Sointu Karjalainen (FOV Ventures)