Welcome to this month’s curated digest of viewpoints, news and investment activity covering the Metaverse, XR and Spatial Computing. If you know of founders, investors or anyone else that would find this investment-focused digest useful then please pass it along!

Dave Haynes & Petri Rajahalme (FOV Ventures)

Everyone's Talking About The Metaverse

This past month, the word on everybody's lips has been 'Metaverse'. Mark Zuckerberg took to a Verge podcast to talk at length about his goal for Facebook to move from being a 'social media' company to a 'Metaverse' company. He doubled down on this in a Q4 investor call and announced the creation of a new Metaverse division within Facebook. This was swiftly followed by a Microsoft earnings call where Satya Nadella asserted again their intention to build out the 'Enterprise Metaverse'.

All this buzz has suddenly thrown the term into the mainstream, with everyone adding their 2 cents on what it actually means and why it matters (some more eloquently than others). There's a risk that this hype becomes unhelpful and distracting, but for me it simply underlines how important this topic is going to be over the next 5-10 years.

Just as we no longer use the term 'Information Superhighway' to describe the 'Internet' we likely won't use the term 'Metaverse' to describe its succesor state. But it's helpful to start building up a common vocabulary between investors, founders, executives and the public -- and to have one overarching term to outline this space as being rife for innovation.

Ultimately one thing seems certain. However we define the Metaverse, its the platform upon which a new generation of billion dollar companies is being built and it will become as pervasive in our everyday lives as the Internet is today.

Viewpoints #5 - The Metaverse in Mixed Reality

For our latest episode of the FOV Ventures podcast 'Viewpoints', we spoke to Uhro Konttori, co-founder of Varjo, who are also working hard to build out the Enterprise Metaverse as they announced the launch of their new Varjo Reality Cloud, which makes real-time reality sharing possible for the first time. We were joined on the show by Ted Persson from EQT Ventures, an early investor in Varjo. Take a listen.

Fundraising Round-Up

Genvid raises $113m for its immersive, streaming 'massive interactive live events' platform

Exit Games raises $50m to continue building its Photon engine, an advanced synchronous multiplayer gaming technology used by over 60,000 games publishers in some 700,000 applications.

Buildots raises $30m to operationalise digital twins in the construction industry.

OssoVR raises $27m for their surgical training platform, allowing medical professionals to practice and perform difficult surgical procedures using VR and haptics

Resolution Games raises $25m led by Qualcomm Ventures and Bitkraft Ventures to build out their Stockholm-based XR games studio, which has seen big successes recently with titles like Demeo.

HaptX raises $12m and announced a new run of the sold-out HaptX Gloves DK2, advanced haptic feedback gloves.

Obsess raises $10m for their virtual commerce platform that allows brands such as Coach or Tommy Hilfiger to create 3D virtual showrooms.

Provenonce raises $4.4m to enable VR creators to reach the mass market via VR art galleries. The company has created "NFT Oasis", a gathering place in VR that is like a hub for artists.

Rezzil raises $2.75m for their VR sports training app "Player 22". Investors include soccer stars Thierry Henry, Gary Neville, Vincent Kompany and Tyrone Mings.

GathR raises $2.7m to power 3D, digitally-visualized, hybrid workspaces where avatars, made via unique hologram technology, navigate training venues and trade show floors.

VOCHI raises $2.4m for its computer vision-powered video editing app. The new funds follow a period of significant growth for the mobile tool, which is now used by more than 500,000 people per month.

DressX raises $2m to create a DressX mobile app. The company produces digital fashion under its own label in partnership with a variety of designers.

VR gaming studio Resolution Games raises $25M — www.roadtovr.com

Their latest VR title 'Demeo' has passed "multi-million dollars" in revenue

Exits and M&A

Hexagon acquires Immersal to expand its smart digital reality capabilities. Immersal, a NordicXRStartups portfolio company, is a Finnish pioneer and leading innovator of spatial mapping and visual positioning solutions used to produce AR applications.

Epic acquires Sketchfab, the leading platform and community for creators of 3D assets. We talked to the CEO in a recent episode of Viewpoints.

Matterport has gone public through a $640m SPAC transaction. The company makes it easy to create digital twins of homes and spaces through its 3D hardware and spatial data software.

Snap acquires another company, Vertebrae, to make AR shopping a reality. The idea is that a company can easily upload visuals and other information about an item into Vertebrae and have a 3D version made for shoppers to access, and potentially buy directly, within Snapchat.

Zoom acquires German startup Kites to bring real-time translation to virtual meetings.

PhotonLens and Shadow Creator announces merger to release consumer AR smart glasses.

Hexagon acquires NordicXRStartups portfolio company Immersal — vrworldtech.com

Quick Links

Before we sign off for this month, here’s a few extra data points, news and opinion pieces we thought were worth a read:

• PwC's latest Media Outlook report showed VR as the fastest-growing media segment, growing around 30% annually.

• Snap hits record revenue and best user growth in four years.

• Digital Twins will act as "foundations of the metaverse" and allow people to move between real and virtual spaces.

• Deloitte study shows that AR has shifted from 'toy' to 'practical tool'

• Animoca Brands and Brinc launch NFT accelerator Launchpad Luna.

That’s all for now. Have a great August and please do send us your feedback, comments or interesting new startups in this space!