With Meta’s rebranding from Facebook to Meta in 2021, the tech giant made a decisive pivot towards building the metaverse. This ambitious move requires massive investments in augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality technologies. Meta force, the company’s venture capital arm, plays a crucial role by investing in startups developing the infrastructure, platforms, and applications for the metaverse. Understanding Meta force’s investment strategy provides valuable insights into the potential growth areas and business models in the burgeoning metaverse ecosystem.
Meta force focuses on early-stage startups building the foundations of the metaverse
As a relatively new $150 million fund, Meta force is concentrating its investments on seed to Series A stage startups. This allows Meta to gain exposure to emerging metaverse technologies at an early stage. Key areas of investment include developer platforms, augmented reality hardware and software, brain-computer interfaces, 3D graphics and rendering, computer vision, robotics, blockchain, social platforms, and more. Notable investments include Matrix Mill, a 3D data platform, Vertigo Games, a VR game studio, and Yeeflow, an AR music creation app.
Meta force partnerships provide startups access to technology, mentorship and distribution
Meta force goes beyond just capital investment by providing portfolio startups with unique resources. Partnerships give startups access to Meta’s top engineers and cutting-edge technologies like Spark AR for developing augmented reality effects. Startups can tap into Meta’s global community of users and developers for feedback, early adoption and distribution. Meta force also connects founders with veteran entrepreneurs and domain experts for mentorship. This surrounding ecosystem significantly de-risks investments in early-stage metaverse startups.
Meta force favors startups innovating on cross-platform metaverse interoperability
As an open and interconnected virtual world, the metaverse requires collaboration between diverse technologies and platforms. Meta force is particularly bullish on startups focused on solving cross-platform operability issues. For example, Meta force invested in Overwolf, a platform helping developers build cross-game apps and mods. Other key investments targeted at unified metaverse infrastructure include Arianee, DappRadar and Ready Player Me. By backing startups focused on open web standards, decentralized systems and unified workflows, Meta force is attempting to shape the metaverse towards an open ecosystem model from the outset.
Consumer-focused metaverse apps that promote social presence receive priority
While foundational technologies are important for building the metaverse, Meta force is ultimately interested in investing in consumer-facing applications that bring people together virtually. Portfolio companies like Sugo, Tribe XR and Venues are developing immersive social metaverse apps for entertainment, events and remote collaboration. Other investments like Identify3D and Morph3D aim to make digital avatars and objects true to their real-world counterparts. By investing in startups that enhance social presence, Meta force is betting on community and creativity being the key draw of virtual worlds long-term.
Meta force is slowly expanding into later funding rounds as the metaverse matures
Launched in 2020, Meta force’s initial focus was on seed stage investments to catch emerging metaverse trends early. However, the fund is now slowly participating in later stage rounds as well, with some Series B and C investments made in 2022. As the metaverse develops into a more defined market over the next 3-5 years, Meta force can step up later-stage financing to the most promising portfolio companies. This will also allow Meta to double down on the sectors and business models showing the most traction as the metaverse evolves.
In summary, Meta force’s aggressive investments reveal key insights into the building blocks, use cases and ethos of the emerging metaverse ecosystem. Priorities include decentralized infrastructure, social presence, identity, 3D content creation, and cross-platform experiences. While risks remain in predicting the metaverse future, Meta force’s thesis provides a compelling perspective on the next computing platform.