We at NordicNinja are happy to announce that we, as co-leads with Taavet+Sten, have participated in the Series A round of $13 million along with investors such as Konvoy Ventures and many more. Check out VentureBeat’s article here.
Crises don’t create trends, they accelerate them. Point in case, the Covid-19 pandemic has been a boom for a wide range of internet services, and this includes the metaverse.
Productivity apps, games, and digital asset marketplaces of the metaverse are growing rapidly. However, until now this fast-growing domain has not allowed users to use their digital avatars across multiple apps or games. Similarly, developers have had to dedicate significant resources to build their own engines without being able to welcome 3rd party avatars into their environments.
Ready Player Me (RPM) is an avatar engine which, at the time of writing this, is used by 1,000+ developers, where users can create their own unique avatar in a matter of seconds, and use the same avatar across different platforms and apps across the metaverse.
The Company’s software development kit (SDK) allows developers to easily integrate the avatar engine into their apps with customization and interoperability across any platform, from Apple to Meta, from Unity to Microsoft and others, saving developers’ their time and effort to build their own avatar engine, allowing them to immediately welcome millions of users.
The team behind Ready Player Me has been at this since 2014, going through the idea maze long before the metaverse was anything but a sci-fi term coined by Neal Stephenson in “Snowcrash”. From building 3D scanners to designing custom avatars for enterprise customers, the team had to develop a toolkit to simplify their own workflow. This toolkit has evolved into a developer-focused platform, and as of late 2020, has been available for developers worldwide.
This year, Ready Player Me avatar platform adoption has grown from 25 to 1,000+ companies, making 2021 a breakout year for the company. Clearly, an avatar platform for the metaverse that allows users to explore virtual worlds with one consistent identity is something that developers are welcoming – companies including VRChat, Somnium Space, Verizon, and Hiberworld have adopted Ready Player Me. The company has also partnered with popular brands such as the Warner Brothers, Dior, and New Balance. Most recently, Ready Player Me partnered with Deadmau5, Pixelynx, and artist Smearballs to bring the Head5 NFT collection to the platform.
This is why we at NordicNinja were excited to join our friends Taavet+Sten to co-lead Ready Player Me’s Series. We’re excited to help the team scale globally, enable users and developers worldwide to express their boundless creativity, and create thriving communities online.
To create your digital avatar, please visit https://readyplayer.me.
