Invact Metaversity raises $33m to develop metaverse university platform

invact metaversity
Image by Unitone Vector | Bigstockphoto

Invact Metaversity – a startup founded by former Twitter India boss Manish Maheshwari that offers a 3D immersive virtual learning platform for the metaverse – has raised funds from over 70 global corporate leaders and founders of various Indian unicorns.

The capital will be used to build the platform and hire engineers, illustrators and 3D designers.

Maheshwari had quit Twitter in December last year to work on Invact Metaversity, whose platform allows students to communicate with each other and their teachers via animated avatars regardless of their physical location.

“We brought an immersive university-like platform where students will experience a virtual world merged with the real world. The metaversity is designed to facilitate the creation of communities and ecosystems over the open web,” says the company website.

Invact Metaversity, co-founded by former senior software engineer at Microsoft Tanay Pratap, raised funding at a value of $33 million. The funding round saw participation from Kishore Biyani (Future Group), T.V. Mohandas Pai (Manipal Global Education), Dr Ritesh Malik (Plaksha), and Kirthiga Reddy (former Facebook India head).

Corporate leaders from startups like Zilingo, Zerodha, Razorpay, Sheroes, Snapdeal, Koo, Cars24, Bounce, Leap Finance and Suki also participated in the funding round, the startup said in a press statement.

Invact Metaversity is headquartered in San Francisco and Bengaluru.

Leaders from Microsoft, Meta, Google, Coinbase, Twitter, Uber, Amazon and Softbank, among others, have also joined the financing round.

In a statement, Invact Metaversity founder and CEO Maheshwari, said he was overwhelmed by the faith that the investors have shown in their vision to make education available to everyone immersively at a price they can afford.

““The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed people to experience colleges and offices from home. Also, existing tools like zoom was a boxed and scripted experience. The social part wasn’t existing. The world is getting ready for a more immersive experience, and is ready for the metaverse, with hardware becoming cheaper, and the network more ubiquitous. Education is ripe for disruption, as it is one sector that needs to be disrupted,” Maheshwari was quoted as saying by Yourstory.

He added that the Invact Metaversity platform facilitates peer-to-peer learning and adds a community layer, which had been missing in online learning, by enabling students to hang out together in virtual spaces.

Invact Metaversity will offer a 16-week MBA alternative for Rs 2 Lakhs + GST ($2,678). The first batch starts on May 12, 2022.

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