Recently, MetaEstate, a Singapore-based metaverse service provider, announced that it has recently closed a multi-million dollar strategic round of funding led by Matrixport and SevenX Ventures, followed by Everest Ventures Group and Y+ Ventures. Besides, Cryptogram Venture (CGV), a Japanese fund that invested in the previous round, performed the follow-up investment in this round. In the current round of funding, several partners of crypto investment institutions also participated in the investment as individuals.
As a brand new field, the virtual real estate market based on the metaverse ecology is booming across the world.. According to statistics of MetaMetric Solutions, the cumulative sales of virtual real estate from mainstream global metaverse projects Sandbox, Decentraland, Cryptovoxels, and Somnium Space reached $500 million in 2021 and are expected to exceed $1 billion in 2022. BrandEssence, a market consultancy, forecasts that the virtual real estate market will grow at a compound annual rate of over 30% between 2022 and 2028.
As the virtual real estate market is highly praised by the market and media, virtual real estate has gradually become an important investment category of global asset allocation and wealth management. In April this year, HSBC Holdings, one of the world’s largest banks and financial service institutions, launched the Metaverse Investment Fund, involving infrastructure, virtualization, and other fields, to attract high-net-worth investment groups (HNWIs) from Hong Kong, China, and Singapore. The Wealth Report 2022 by Knight Frank, a world-renowned real estate consulting firm, also pointed out that HNWIs are increasingly diversifying their investments, showing a shift from “real” to “virtual” investments.
Since its inception, MetaEstate, a world-famous metaverse ecological service provider, has carried out extensive business centered on the planning of rational sites for the global metaverse, the construction of excellent buildings, the introduction of famous IPs, the development of usage scenarios, marketing activities and property management services, and has accumulated profound practical experience and industry resources in the distribution, operation, and trading of virtual real estate. Through this strategic round of financing, MetaEstate will introduce a series of strategic partners to provide the necessary support for the following layout of virtual real estate operation, fund capitalization, business globalization, EstateFi financial cooperation and other emerging business segments.
SevenX Ventures argued that from the perspective of investment in blockchain technology and applications, the Internet data and Internet assets generated by Web3 based on the metaverse are being empowered by blockchain technology, and virtual real estate will become the important infrastructure for metaverse. MetaEstate is making steady progress towards a comprehensive solution provider for the Metaverse ecological infrastructure, with huge development potential.
Lin Xiahong, a partner of Continue Capital, stated that the metaverse frenzy led by millennials is triggering the redistribution of wealth. In the US and Canada, young people are keen on owning a house in the Metaverse, which has gradually become a fashion trend. We believe that MetaEstate will constantly make breakthroughs in the global virtual real estate market.
Jerome, a partner of Everest Ventures Group, said that it would help MetaEstate develop a more personalized, differentiated, and diversified competitive advantage in the virtual real estate market by cooperating with ecological partners, including Sandbox and Animoca’s ecological resources in the GameFi and NFTs, using EVG’s metaverse IP resources and invested companies, and providing innovative application scenarios.
Y+ Ventures believes that the metaverse can break the space & time constraints of supply factors such as land and labor force in the real world, and transform “Land” into digital form to create incremental economic value. MetaEstate has high potential to generate economics of scale around the land development, construction, and property management of the metaverse.
Steve, the founder of Cryptogram Venture, deemed that he would introduce more IPs to MetaEstate, empower the ecological development of the Metaverse, and allow users to enjoy a richer and more interesting experience in the IP virtual space. Meanwhile, CGV will work with MetaEstate to promote the implementation of a new business model integrating virtual space and digital elements based on its unique resource connection capabilities in Asia, especially in the Japanese market.
Kevin Shao, executive chairman of the Asia Blockchain Gaming Alliance (ABGA), emphasized the importance of aggregating resources on ABGA’s platform, promoting cooperation between different country regions and different institutional alliances within Asia on GameFi and the metaverse ecology, and supporting MetaEstate’s business development through innovative development to achieve business integration and create a win-win situation.
Jackey, the co-founder of MetaEstate, said that virtual real estate is the cornerstone of metaverse assets. MetaEstate positions itself as a metaverse service provider with a view to helping more users enter the metaverse world with a low threshold. Next, it will constantly consolidate and develop an innovative business model based on the construction development business of virtual real estate, providing landowners, artists, business owners, and various users a more immersive, real-time, and diverse pan-entertainment experience. Additionally, in the future, it will further explore new organizational forms such as DAOs and trade unions for virtual real estate, emphasizing promoting virtual real estate’s issuance, operation, and trading platforms construction and emerging businesses.
It is reported that, in September 2021, MetaEstate completed a million-dollar seed round of funding led by Cryptomeria Labs and Rocktree Capital, followed by Kirin Fund, IcarusArt.AI, Waterdrip Capital, Consensus Lab, Chain Capital, and Cryptogram Venture (CGV). Many KOLs in encryption art, NFTs, and traditional VC also participated in this investment.
