Uncovered among recent regulatory filings, VR metaverse company High Fidelity has raised $22 million in new funding.
The company, which has reportedly raised $17.45 million across four prior venture investments, has raised a new round of venture capital to the tune of $22 million, reports the Wall Street Journal. High Fidelity CEO Philip Rosedale confirmed to New World Notes that the investment was led by IDG Capital and new investor Breyer Capital.
Rosedale was the founder and former head of Linden Lab, the company behind Second Life, which was also an attempt at a metaverse-like ecosystem in the pre-modern VR era. After leaving Linden Lab years ago, Rosedale formed High Fidelity aiming to harness the oncoming wave of immersive VR, and the learnings gleaned from Second Life.
High Fidelity is a foundation for a persistent metaverse which allows users to host, build, and join interconnected virtual worlds. The company says the extent of their platform is “limitless” thanks to a distributed-computing model that crowdsources processing power from users to run complex simulations. The app is currently in open beta with support for the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and normal monitors (including PC and Mac).
Linden Lab has since announced Sansar, a next-generation social world that’s built from the ground up for virtual reality. A curious happenstance indeed; Rosedale’s High Fidelity appears in direct competition with another company he founded.
Back in its prime, Linden Lab had reportedly raised $19 million in venture investments. High Fidelity’s new round eclipses that figure, now with some $40 million raised to date. Meanwhile, similarly positioned social VR app AltspaceVR has closed some $18 million in venture funding, while a smattering of smaller social VR apps like VRChat and JanusVR have raised around $1.5 million each.
With High Fidelity’s latest investment, the stakes for the metaverse and social VR space are growing larger. Meanwhile, the shadow of Facebook looms.