Estonia-based cross-platform avatar maker Ready Player Me announced that it has raised $56 million in Series B funding led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) via the company’s gaming investment initiative GAMES FUND ONE.
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Per the official press release coming from the metaverse company, Roblox Co-founder David Baszucki, Twitch and Fractal co-founder Justin Kan, King Co-founders Sebastian Knutsson and Riccardo Zacconi also participated in the funding round. Plural, Endeavor, Kevin Hart’s Hartbeat Ventures, D’Amelio family, Punk6529, Snowfro, Nordic Ninja, Konvoy, and many other investors also took part in the Series B round.
The metaverse-focused company was launched back in May 2020 and secured $13 million in a seed funding round back in December 20221. It has now raised $72 million in total investment. Ready Player Me works with major brands like Pixelnyx, Spatial, VRChat, and Adidas alongside others.
Timmu Toke, Co-founder and CEO of Ready Player Me said the following:
“Our bigger vision is to connect the metaverse through avatars. There may be metaverse experiences owned by big companies, who will make all the rules, but there is a vision of an open one where people can travel, built by millions of developers, where no one controls the whole thing. Like the internet. We’re trying to push the world towards that metaverse.”
The Talin-based metaverse-focused company’s Sercan Altundaş shared the following message on his LinkedIn page:
“The metaverse is not a single app. It’s a network of millions of virtual worlds people visit to play games, socialize and collaborate. Today, most of those worlds are closed and disconnected walled gardens. We’re on a mission to break down the virtual walls to build a more open and connected metaverse.”
Ready Player Me has over 5 million avatars across approximately 3,000 partners, and the official press release says the $56 million funding will be used to expand the metaverse platform with more developer tools, create more cross-platform avatars while increasing diversity and increase the company’s headcount.
The company believes for the metaverse to grow, cross-platform services that connect virtual worlds together must be built and should be interoperable. “Avatars play a huge role in that.” says the firm’s spokesperson and adds“Ready Player Me exists to break down walls to build a more connected virtual world. We are the avatar interoperability layer for the metaverse.”
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