Tag: Inara Pey

Everyrealm: The Multi-Million-Dollar Metaverse Company You Probably Haven’t Heard of Yet (But You Will!)

Republic CEO Kendrick Nguyen (image source)

This man is Kendrick Nguyen. Five years ago, he founded an investment firm called Republic, focused on opportunities in startups, real estate, video games, and crypto. On Oct. 19th, 2021, TechCrunch reporter Connie Loizos wrote:

Where many see regulatory murkiness, the five-year-old, New York-based investing platform Republic sees opportunity. Indeed, while many outfits grapple with whether to distance themselves from certain digital assets, Republic — whose CEO, Kendrick Nguyen, started his career in securities litigation with Goodwin Procter — has focused from the start on establishing itself as a go-to brand for what Nguyen calls “compliant tokenization.”

…

Just today, the company is announcing a $150 million Series B round led by Valor Equity Partners, which follows a $36 million Series A round that the company announced in March from Galaxy Interactive, Motley Fool Ventures, HOF Capital, Tribe Capital and CoinFund. (Those earlier investors just re-upped, by the way, and were joined by new backers Pillar VC, Brevan Howard, GoldenTree and Atreides.)

Altogether, says Nguyen, Republic, which employs 200 people, had raised more than $50 million in equity financing ahead of this newest round, and more than $20 million in a token sale.

The outfit is certainly busy putting it all to work. Republic already comprises several different business arms, including a popular retail investment platform that invites people to invest with as little as $10; a private capital division with almost $1 billion in assets under management that funnels accredited investors into startups; and a blockchain consultancy arm that provides technical, financing, distribution and tokenization services.

Republic also right now has two affiliated closed-end investment funds deploying capital into startups and crypto projects, along with a digital investment arm operating as Republic Realm that focuses exclusively on metaverses and NFTs.

Anita Ramaswamy wrote in a follow-up TechCrunch article on Feb. 10th, 2022 that Republic has spun off its Republic Realm arm into a separate company, helmed by CEO Janine Yorio. Republic will be a minority investor in this new company, which has been rebranded as Everyrealm:

Some statistics taken from the brand-new Everyrealm website include the following:

My avatar standing in the Metajuku shopping district in Decentraland

It’s clear that Everyrealm has serious money to spend (they’ve already raised US$60 million), and they intend to invest it in a variety of metaverse platforms! Anita reports:

Everyrealm hopes to become “the gateway to the entire metaverse ecosystem,” according to the company. It is invested in 25 different metaverses and owns 3,000+ NFTs today, Yorio said.

“We started out investing [in the metaverse], but we’ve since expanded our mandate to do a lot more than that. We see ourselves as developers of metaverse content, so we don’t just passively invest and sit back and wait for other people to build things,” Yorio said. The company has built on top of many of its virtual properties — for example, it launched a retail store concept in Decentraland two weeks ago, which it plans to expand into other metaverse platforms, Yorio said. Indeed, 10,000 virtual items in the store sold out in the span of an hour, she added.

Not too long ago, I wrote a blogpost about the then-Republic Realm’s foray into education, writing with just a smidgen of snark about something called the Republic Realm Academy:

Apparently, they have set up a virtual campus in the blockchain-based social VR platform Somnium Space, and Somnium Space CEO Artur Sychov himself will be teaching “a class at the Academy about VR and the future of the metaverse:”

Tuition for four weeks, which includes a “limited edition Republic Realm Academy NFT Tuition Badge”, which will “be your campus ID card and unlock all Republic Realm Academy resources and initiatives at the start of the term”, six online courses, plus “limited office hours with professors, subject to availability”, costs US$1,000…

Let’s face it: it’s to Cathy’s and Artur’s and so many other people’s advantage to sell (and yes, I deliberately use the word sell) as many people as they can on this frankly blinkered perspective on the metaverse—even to the point of offering thousand-dollar certificates for things could probably be learned just as easily from others for free! The overall messaging here is that the non-blockchain-based metaverse platforms which predate this boom in artificially-scarce NFT-based real estate are simply not worth bothering with or investing in.

Well, I now publicly will eat some crow, because buried in Anita’s TechCrunch report is the following news nugget:

Everyrealm also operates a virtual educational campus called Realm Academy in the Somnium Space metaverse, where users can learn more about web3 concepts through online courses. Its inaugural class has 500 students who have paid $1,000 each to attend, Yorio said.

If Janine Yorio is to be believed (and frankly, I have zero reason to doubt her), Everyrealm cleared 500 x US1,000 = US$500,000 from the first offering of their six-course educational program. That’s right—a cool half-million dollars! I guess I was seriously wrong about people not being interested in signing up for their courses, and I am willing to admit that I was wrong. Hey, it does happen—sometimes… 😉

And, I was also wrong about something else. As it turns out, Everyrealm has not limited their investment to solely the metaverse platforms with NFT-based real estate! Today I learned that the company is involved in a major event which is taking place this week in Second Life, the Metaverse Fashion Week 2022:

As featured in Vogue today, designer Jonathan Simkhai has partnered with metaverse developer Everyrealm and metaverse production house Blueberry Entertainment to produce an exciting new Metaverse Fashion Week event inside Second Life – and you are invited!

Second Life community members can be among the first to preview all-new exclusive spring 2022 collections this week by attending any of the several runway shows scheduled throughout this week. 

Check out this video sneak peek of what to expect on the runway. Video Production by Vrutega.

Irritatingly, the above link to “several runway shows scheduled throughout this week” only takes you to the sim where the events are taking place, but without the details of when they were happening! Fortunately, Inara Pey has all the details in a detailed write-up on her blog:

The individual in question is New York fashion designer and 2015 CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund winner, Jonathan Simkhai. As a part of the New York Fashion Week event, he offered a special preview of some of his designs from his Autumn / Winter 2022 (AW22) collection at a special fashion show that took place in Second Life.

In all 11 pieces from the collection have been visualised for Second Life by none other than Mishi McDuff (aka Blueberryxx), founder and owner of SL’s popular Blueberry brand (and, I will admit, one of my go-to designers on the admittedly rare occasions I feel I need to spruce up my virtual wardrobe). In bringing the designs to SL, Blueberry has also given them a special “metaverse flair” – utilising the unique advantages of the digital world to offer twists to some of the items that cannot be replicated in the physical world – such as a sequined dress that gradually loses its embellishments and morphs into a bodysuit as the model walks the runway.

The items were presented to an invited audience of models, influencers, celebrities, and journalists from the fashion, technology and lifestyle industries. They had the opportunity to see the virtual items ahead of Simkhai presenting their physical world equivalents on the New York catwalk, so the guests could witness the virtual garments and their unique properties up close – and even try them on.

I think that this is a brilliant move by Everyrealm. Why? Because none of the NFT metaverse platforms they currently invest in (Decentraland, Somnium Space, Axie Infinity, etc.) have anything which compares to the mature, fully-evolved dressable avatar system which has evolved over the 18+ years of the history of Second Life! Here’s one of the pictures used in the (unfortunately paywalled) Vogue Business article:

And you can bet that Linden Lab is on board with this; how often does Second Life get mentioned in Vogue, plus fashion and tech news outlets like British GLAMOUR, Mobile Marketing, and the Fashion Network? As Inara says:

This may sound like something straight out of 2006-2008, when many physical world brands tried to hop into SL in the belief it would magically allow them to grow their market influence, but actually it isn’t. The Simkhai / Blueberry relationship is far more symbiotic and engaging, and for two reasons.

The first is that as well as being presented to invited guests, the Second Life Simkhai collection will be the subject of a series of catwalk shows open to Second Life residents on Thursday February 17th / Friday February 18th, with shows set hourly from 13:00 through 16:00 (inclusive – see the Destination Guide link at the end of this article). Not only will these serve to show the designs to the Second Life community, they will also – according to Vogue’s Maghan McDowell –  allow SL users to purchase them at around L$1,000 per item.

So, if you missed out on today’s fashion shows, you can try to catch one tomorrow! I do have my eye on that haute couture dress illustrated in the Vogue Business article above! According to a press release posted to Reddit:

NFT sale from first metaverse fashion show launched from nftgamef

You can see the NFTs listed for sale here (scroll down the page a bit).

Yes, those are prices in U.S. dollars!

These NFTs, which cost anywhere from US$200-600 apiece, confer the following “benefits” (please note that this does not apply to sales within Second Life; as mentioned earlier, SL versions of these virtual garments, made in association with well-known womenswear designer Blueberry, will cost about L$1,000 each, a relative bargain!):

  • Limited edition Metaverse Fashion Week merchandise/apparel
  • Ability to wear Jonathan Simkhai NFT wearables as your avatar in the metaverse
  • Access to future Everyrealm digital wearables activations
  • Whitelisting for future digital wearables drops

Keep in mind that your ability to actually wear these garments on your avatar in the various NFT metaverse platforms is heavily dependent upon the ability of the various companies building those platforms to support it (I can guarantee you that the lovely Lucee dress shown above will not look nearly as sparkly on the current crop of Decentraland avatars, for example, let alone the voxel-based blockchain-based platforms like Cryptovoxels and The Sandbox!)

Therefore, many of these “benefits”, like so much for sale in this current season of blockchain, crypto, and NFT-based metaverse madness, are essentially the opportunity to flex and/or gloat to your friends…and to be first in line for the next line-up of expensive NFT-based avatar wearables!

However, I do have to hand it to Everyrealm. The company is certainly putting its money where its mouth is, and they are making a significant splash in the metaverse in a short time. I honestly cannot think of another firm which has its fingers in so many metaverse pies, all at the same time! More power to them.

As I often say on my blog, “a rising tide lifts all boats,” and Everyrealm is attracting big money (and attention) to the ever-evolving and mutating metaverse! Who knows, maybe Second Life will be home to a few more fashion shows linked to real-world, big-name designers? As we can see, there’s still a valuable place for older, non-NFT-based metaverse platforms like SL in this season of the NFT metaverse!

Metaverse Fashion Week 2022

2022 is promising to be a very interesting year, I predict! Stay tuned! I leave you with this (undated) writeup by David Murphy of MobileMarketing:

Metaverse Fashion Week, an event produced by Everyrealm and Blueberry Entertainment, took place yesterday, featuring Jonathan Simkhai as the debut designer. The event occurred day prior to the physical Jonathan Simkhai 2022 presentation at New York Fashion Week, making the real-world designer the first ever to show it’s Fall/Winter 2022 digital wearables collection ahead of their physical counterparts…

Guest took their seats in the larger-than-life bespoke set made specifically for the fashion event in the Second Life metaverse. The secluded location was inspired by natural elements such as rock, water, air, and fire. Simkhai’s latest collection was showcased on the avatar models during the 8-minute presentation. Simkhai debuted 11 designs from his Fall/Winter 2022 collection, which were digitally reimagined for the Metaverse.

The garments are converted from the real-world version into 3D digital models using design software and video gaming technology. The Second Life Marketplace has been selling digital clothing and accessories from Blueberry since 2011. Wearables and clothing are among the most popular types of commerce in Second Life’s $650m dollar virtual economy.

Founded by Mishi McDuff in 2012 as a solo creator on Second Life, Blueberry has sold more than 20m on digital wearables, amassed a library of more than 10,000 digital SKUs optimized for hundreds of design attributes, and scaled an engaged community of loyal customers. Blueberry is already live on multiple metaverse platforms, and is actively expanding its brand and community to other web 2.0 and 3.0 metaverses.

UPDATED! Inara Pey Writes an Open Letter to Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg

Inara Pey is a longtime virtual worlds blogger, who does such a stellar job of covering the various technical meetings that take place in Second Life and Sansar that I have, in the past, simply reblogged many of her comprehensive reports rather than try to emulate her tireless work. I admire Inara greatly and I consider her a model for my own blogging, so when she speaks out on a subject, I pay attention.

And she has posted an open letter to Linden Lab CEO Ebbe Altberg, asking him to reconsider planned changes to Basic avatar accounts in Second Life:

Throughout the last five years, I’ve personally appreciated the efforts Linden Lab have put into trying to meet the demand for lower land tier and to make virtual land holdings in Second Life more attractive. I also understand the need to offset such reductions with increases elsewhere to ensure LL as a company mains a good revenue flow. As such, while the fee changes announced on May 29th have caused me something of an “ouch!” reaction, I can understand the motivation behind them, and will learn to live with them.

However, what I feel is ill-conceived are the proposed Basic account changes.

Although I can understand there may well be technical reasons for doing this (load balancing to enable the increases to the same capabilities that are to be offered to Premium subscribers, perhaps?), the fact remains this these reductions come across as best as being punitive and at worse entirely mean-spirited towards Basic account holders. As my friend and fellow SL user Will Burns has noted: “One increases the value of a Premium account by actually increasing the value added proposition, not forcing the issue by reducing the value added of the free account.“

I would therefore urge you to re-consider this move, and allow Basic members either retain their current 42 group limit, or as a compromise (and while I appreciate this is easier said than done), seek to allow current Basic member retain the current 42 groups cap whilst restricting those joining after June 24th to a maximum of 35 groups.

I am not the first Second Life user, Premium or otherwise) to voice concerns over this move. Please do take the time to consider what is being said the changes to Basic accounts via Twitter, in the SL forums and other social platforms, and how they could stand to significantly alienate a good portion of a user base that, while they may not pay subscription fees, nevertheless pay an important role in both the economic and social fabric of Second Life, and who – like all of us engaged in the platform – want to see it continue to thrive and grow and remain a part of our lives.

And I agree 100% with what Inara has said. Let me illustrate what an absolute pain in the ass the planned reductions in groups from 42 to 35 will mean for me. Let’s say I have a Basic (i.e. non-Premium) avatar account that is already at the 42-group limit. And let’s say that Scandalize (a store with many group gifts and a group join fee) decides to have another weekend where you can join their store group for free.

Right now, all I have to do is leave one group (hopefully, one with no group join fee) and join the Scandalize group. But, after June 24th, I will have to leave eight groups (almost 20% of them) before I can join the Scandalize group. In fact, I might even have to leave groups where I already paid a join fee, and that fee is not refunded. Many people already do this intricate dance of leaving and rejoining groups in order to stay informed about events and hunts and take advantage of group gifts. Making this sort of difficult decision even more difficult is going to negatively impact millions of SL customers with Basic avatar accounts. (And please don’t bother nitpicking apart the “millions” part of that last statement. Arguing over how many active user accounts Second Life really has is not the point of this editorial.)

Now, according to Grumpity Linden:

We’re not lowering [group] limits [for non-Premium users] out of spite, groups really are quite a strain on our back end for a variety of painful historical reasons, including overloading group functionality instead of having other tools.  This subject alone is worth a novel liberally sprinkled with tears. So anyway, we don’t hate basic users, and in fact we work hard to retain our free-to-play offering as one of the most generous across many industries.

But, as I have said on the Second Life community forums:

Basic (non-Premium) account holders are feeling somewhat shafted by the reduction of groups from 42 to 35. It doesn’t matter what LL’s technical explanation is; what matters is how it LOOKS, and it looks like LL is being petty and cheap. 

This might seem like a trivial issue to many, but it’s not. Groups are a key means of communication within Second Life. Stores use them to keep in touch with their customers, events such as hunts use them to share hints and make announcements, and they are heavily used in roleplay sims to assign player roles, among many other uses.

So, I am adding my voice to Inara’s and many other SL users who have spoken out against these planned reductions in service to Basic account holders, who make up the vast majority of SL users.

UPDATE 9:45 p.m.: Well, guess what? Linden Lab has listened to us, and they have made the following announcement:

On May 29th, we made an announcement about future changes to Premium and Basic account features including plans to increase Group Memberships and offline IM limits for Premium account holders while reducing them for Basic accounts.

We’ve since heard strong and convincing feedback from many in our community about the impact of changing Group Membership limits for Basic accounts. For example, many Residents have shared how they rely heavily on Groups to stay informed about new product releases as Merchants use this feature to regularly communicate news and updates to their customers, and how much Groups are used for keeping communities active.

We hear your concerns and, as a result, Group Membership limits for Basic Residents will NOT be reduced as part of our Premium Membership changes rolling out on June 24th.

Thank you, Ebbe Altberg and the team at Linden Lab!

Inara Pey Blogs the Sansar October Release Preview: Improving the New User Experience

Inara Pey's Blog 29 Oct 2018.png

I had fallen out of the habit of reblogging Inara Pey’s excellent summaries of the weekly Sansar product meetings. In her most recent post, I note with interest:

NEW USER EXPERIENCE UPDATE

Starting with the October release, new users will be taken to an experience on logging-in to Sansar for the first time, and have a default avatar. The experience will be one of those currently populated with other people, the idea being to get new users interaction with other users as quickly as possible.

Which experience a new user is sent to will depend on a number of factors: whether it is public; how many are already in it (to avoid sending new users to an experience nearing its capacity and the possibility they may be re-directed to an empty instance); and those experiences that present a heavy  / long load time will also be avoided.

I think this is a wonderful idea! There are a number of other new features coming in the next release, which you can read in full detail over on her blog. Thanks, Inara!

(Note that the “October” release may be pushed back to early November.)

Inara Pey Blogs the Sansar Product Meetup of March 13th

Inara Pey has provided detailed notes from the Sansar Product Meetup of Tuesday, March 13th.

Sansar Product Meetup Report 14 Mar 2018

Of particular note is a decision by Linden Lab to pull the initial release of the Terrain Editor:

One of the findings from the performance investigations is that the terrain editor used to sculpt height maps from within Sansar, and the terrains edited using it, can have a significant performance impact in both Edit and Run-time modes. There is no quick fix for this at present, as the terrain editor requires a significant amount of work, and the resources aren’t available at the moment. Because of this:

  • The terrain editor will be disabled with the next release.
  • There’s no date as to when a replace terrain editing system will be implemented.
  • Between now and the end of April, creators who have extensively used the terrain editor and height maps to produce terrain in their scenes / experiences, will be asked to remove / delete their existing terrain sculpts with tiles made via alternative means (e.g. custom made externally and uploaded for “as-is” use).

It’s unclear how many people will be affected by this. The Terrain Editor was noticeably buggy, and I think that few people actually used it to create terrain in Sansar experiences. I blogged about the Terrain Editor when it was first released back in September.