Netflix has acquired Ready Player Me, an Estonia-based avatar creation platform, as it shifts its games strategy toward titles played on TV and looks to build avatars that can carry across different games for Netflix subscribers. The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
Ready Player Me co-founder Kaspar Tiri disclosed the deal on LinkedIn, saying the team will join Netflix to contribute to its gaming strategy with Ready Player Me’s cross-game avatar technology, designed to let players carry their “identities and fandom” across games.
Ready Player Me’s team of around 20 will join the company. Among the four founders—Kaspar Tiri, Rainer Selvet, Timmu Tõke, and Haver Järveoja—only CTO Rainer Selvet is set to move to Netflix.
“Our vision has always been to enable avatars and identities to travel across many games and virtual worlds.
We’ve been on an independent path to make that vision a reality for a long time.
I’m now very excited for the Ready Player Me team to join Netflix to scale our tech and expertise to a global audience and contribute to the exciting vision Netflix has for gaming.”
Ready Player Me CEO Timmu Tõke
As part of the transition, Ready Player Me will wind down its services, which are scheduled to become unavailable starting January 31, 2026. Netflix said it does not yet have an estimate for when avatars will launch within its games lineup, or which titles will receive the feature first.
The company raised $72 million over the past decade-plus from investors including a16z Games, a16z crypto, Plural, Konvoy, and others, as it pursued a long-term goal of making avatars and identities portable across games and virtual worlds.
