BuzzAR, a Singapore-based metaverse startup, said Monday it has raised $3.8 million seed funding to create an inclusive metaverse.
The round is oversubscribed with participation from F50 Elevate in Texas, United States, regional venture capitals (VCs), angels including former Marina Bay Sands executive Ian Wilson, IP and Brand Protection Expert Peter Hlavnicka, BuzzAR said in a statement.
BuzzAR will use the seed funding to hire, set up a United States office, launch a Web3 product, called CryptoToon, an avatar non-fungible tokens (NFTs) platform in the coming weeks.
Users can use a simple API to create their own avatars, drop their own NFTs through the CryptoToon API. 2 million avatars have been generated by users from 163 countries using HappyToon.
“I’m excited, I still remember BuzzAR was born at my UC Berkeley dorm room, where I had to juggle my little startup with my co-founder halfway across the globe, attending big tech conferences, while maintaining grades for a scholarship, awarded by UC Berkeley. Those were the days!”, said Bell Beh, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of BuzzAR.
BuzzAR is poised to be Southeast Asia’s first metaverse startup that has fully scaled the 7 enablers of the metaverse, which is online gaming (2013), VR (2015), Augmented Reality (AR) (2018), Digital Twin (2019), Avatar engine (2021). In 2022, BuzzAR is launching the last 2 enablers, which are Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), Social Networking (2022).
BuzzAR’s Co-Founder and CTO, Ken Lim, has published 20 games and amassed 20 million players without VC funding. Now, he joins BuzzAR with all the profitable business assets from Play Spirit Games, including The Cooking Game VR, the No.1 Cooking VR game on Meta (Oculus Rift).
BuzzAR’s ambition is to scale the metaverse business and to empower everyone to create. The company has doubled its headcounts, delivered stellar revenue growth, with over 10x revenue growth, post-acquisition.
“One of the big criticisms of crypto/Web3 is that it’s dominated by 81 percent males. Being a woman-led metaverse startup, I’m inspired to offer a fresh perspective and strike a balance in this ecosystem. This is why I was pumped to roll out the CryptoToon API, and more women-friendly GameFi projects, to give everyone, both men and women an equal opportunity, early access to this trillion-dollar market opportunity”, said Beh.