Ready Player Me has raised $56 million in a round led by a16z and backed by Konvoy Ventures, Collab Currency, Plural Platform and Kevin Hart’s Hartbeat Ventures.
Ready Player Me has raised $56 million in a funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z).
Ready Player Me x @a16z
We’ve closed a $56M Series B funding round led by @Tocelot from @a16z GAMES FUND ONE and @cdixon from @a16z crypto!https://t.co/YeVo5Xfl7b
— Ready Player Me (@readyplayerme) August 23, 2022
Who are the main investors?
The Series A fundraising has also attracted participation from Konvoy Ventures, Collab Currency, Taavet Hinrikus and Sten Tamkivi’s Plural Platform and comedian Kevin Hart’s Hartbeat Ventures.
Roblox’s David Baszucki and Twitch’s Justin Kan, as well as popular NFT collector pseudonym Punk6529, are also among the top individual investors.
The metaverse avatar platform plans to use the funds to double the size of its team, which currently stands at 50 people, Ready Player Me CEO Timmu Tõke told The Block.
How does the fundraising happen?
The fundraising also follows Ready Player Me’s $13 million Series A round led by Taavet+Sten in December last year. Prior to today, the company had raised a total of $29.5 million in seven rounds, including pre-seed, seed, a venture capital round and a Series A, according to CrunchBase.
Ready Player Me
Ready Player Me is a metaverse avatar creation platform inspired by Ernest Cline’s popular novels, which spawned a series of games and the 2018 film “Ready Player One.”
Ready Player Me will enable metaverse game developers to bring the imaginative gaming experience of Ready Player One to Web3.
To do so, the company will leverage the leadership and expertise of a16z’s Jonathan Lai and Plural’s Tamkivi, who have joined the metaverse avatar platform’s board of directors.
Toke’s experience in 3D avatar development dates back to 2014, when his company Wolf3D worked with leading technology and entertainment companies such as Tencent, Verizon and HTC, building custom avatar systems.
According to Toke, Ready Player Me is built on a solid foundation of a proprietary database of facial scans. He said Wolf3D scanned more than 20,000 people with more than 100 cameras, enabling it to launch the metaverse avatar platform in 2020.
The platform allows users to create avatars for free, which can then be obtained by developers for use in various metaverse projects, free of charge.
Ready Player Me partner projects
Leading web3 projects such as VRChat, Somnium Space and NFT studio RTFKT – acquired by Nike in December last year – have already integrated Ready Player Me, according to the CEO.
The company has also partnered with leading sportswear brand Adidas, while Spatial integrated Ready Player Me in May to bring inclusivity to the metaverse.
The company is now focused on developing a toolkit that will make it easier for anyone to create avatars.
“We are building tools to scale our platform so that any individual artist or creator can participate, create assets and sell them on the open market,” Toke said.
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