MetaMundo the 3D NFT marketplace for building the metaverse, has raised $2.7 million in seed funding. The round was led by Animoca Brands, a global figurehead in gamification and blockchain, with participation from Hypersphere Ventures, Digital Currency Group (DCG), OP Crypto, Metacartel Ventures, Marshland Capital, Own.fund, Polygon Studios, Ascensive Assets, Sfermion, D1 Ventures, Cryptomeria Capital, Red Beard Ventures and Metacollective. The raise includes angel investments from the founder(s) of AAVE, Rarible, WilderWorld, Nifty Island, Property’s Digital Ventures and MetaPortal. The advisors to MetaMundo include Jon Radoff (CEO of Beamable and author of Building the Metaverse), Eric Arsenault (RaribleDAO, YGG and VentureDAO), Jin (DankVR) and Metadreamer (MetaFactory).
The raise represents investment from some of the largest metaverse landowners and developers. The new funding will be used to launch the marketplace in Q1 2022, to continue optimizing and building MetaMundo’s suite of conversion tools, and to develop direct integrations with the leading metaverses and game builders.
“Interoperability is an essential feature of the open metaverse,” said Yat Siu, the executive chairman and co-founder of Animoca Brands. “MetaMundo is creating a network of 3D creators and tools that make it possible to build the multiple emerging open metaverse environments that we envision as the future of digital experience.”
MetaMundo’s platform and technology embolden architects, designers, and 3D creators to mint, sell and license their 3D assets for use across open metaverses and VR/AR applications, including Decentraland, Cryptovoxels, Somnium Space, and Spatial. Using a suite of 3D model conversion tools, the platform takes an original 3D file from the creator and optimizes it for each metaverse. The collection of optimized files is then minted as one NFT, enabling ownership of one asset for any metaverse. MetaMundo also optimizes these files to ensure they work with each new environment.
MetaMundo’s unique approach empowers 3D creators with the freedom to create their desired art and allows the collector to easily acquire an NFT that can be used across many virtual environments. This technology solves two key issues for metaverse builders: the first is easy accessibility to 3D content that allows them to build worlds; the second is the interoperability of these assets across games and different environments.
“One of the biggest challenges facing the development of the metaverse is the creation of 3D content,” said MetaMundo co-founder Mark Studholme. “By enabling an existing network of architects and designers, we can provide high-quality content for metaverse builders.”
“One of the problems for metaverse users today is that they can’t easily use their 3D assets across different virtual environments. In part, this is due to the disparity in supported format and attributes like file type, size and mesh count,” said Finn Hansen, MetaMundo co-founder. “We’re focused on solving this lack of interoperability by automating the conversion process to mint 3D assets that are metaverse-ready from day one.”
MetaMundo is built on Polygon, the eco-friendly blockchain, which means the minting and selling of the assets will have very low gas fees compared to Ethereum and will use 99.5% less energy. It also means the assets will be interoperable across Polygon-based metaverses such as Decentraland and Somnium Space. MetaMundo will offset any carbon emissions made from the transactions on Polygon.
The assets made available on MetaMundo are desirable premium collectibles created by a curated community of high-end architects, designers, and 3D creators. Initially, the categories will include NFT art galleries, DJ venues, shops, bars, homes, and interactive buildings.
“We’re transitioning from the engineering era of game development to the creator era. MetaMundo is providing the necessary tools for creators to own the future of the metaverse and define how it will be experienced,” said Jon Radoff, advisor to MetaMundo, CEO of Beamable, and author of Building the Metaverse.
