Ready Player Me Raised $56 Million In Series B Funding

On Tuesday, metaverse avatar platform Ready Player Me successfully raised $56 million in a Series B round led by a16z. The latest financing follows the company’s Series A announced in December 2021, when the team raised $13 million in a funding round led by Taavet+Sten.

On August 23, Ready Player Me announced the closing of a $56 million Series B funding round with many big names in the industry.

Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) led the round, alongside Konvoy Ventures, Collab Currency, Taavet Hinrikus, Plural Platform, and Hartbeat Ventures… Famous angel investors like Roblox co-founder David Baszucki, Twitch co-founder Justin Justin Kan and Punk6529, also attended the event.

As part of the deal, a16z’s Jonathan Lai and Plural’s Tamkivi will also join the company’s newly formed board of directors, Ready Player Me CEO Timmu Tõke revealed.

Tõke started the idea of virtual avatars in 2014 with the company Wolf3D. They started building 3D scanning hardware, then spent 4 years building custom avatar systems for Tencent, Huawei, Verizon, Wargaming, and HTC. Tõke said:

“What will unlock the true metaverse experience is interoperability between games, worlds, and applications and consistent identity for users across all experiences. We think it’s essential for virtual worlds users to create an avatar they love and buy avatar skins and accessories that work across the metaverse and are not stuck in one game.”

RPM has already formed partnerships with well-known companies which include firms like Adidas, Warner Brothers, Pull&Bear, and Dior. The startup is also working with Hiber, Mzaalo, the Nemesis platform, 8th Wall, and Pixelynx. Jonathan Lai said the investment company was “impressed by the team” and noted that a16z looks forward to working with RPM.

RPM’s funding comes on the heels of a large surge of popular brands and corporations looking to capitalize on the metaverse concept. Invesco, a fund manager with $1.4 billion in assets under management (AUM), launched a metaverse fund this week. The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology is constructing a metaverse campus, and the University of Tokyo is offering metaverse engineering courses.

Ready Player Me is also expanding its team size as many organizations are choosing to lay off to cut operating costs. The company currently has 50 employees and it plans to double that number next year.

The Series B round has brought Ready Player Me’s total funding to date to $72 million. They raised $16 million from two previous rounds, but the CEO declined to disclose the company’s valuation.

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