What does investing in the metaverse look like and who is doing it?

It has a huge variety, for example are you investing in the metaverse platforms themselves like Decentraland or Sandbox, or are they investing in the digital real estate within as an investment or did they buy an NFT that gives them access to particular metaverse experiences etc. Also depends on what you mean as an investment, are brands who are buying spots in the metaverse looking to them as investments to be liquidated for a return or are they viewed as investments in which to create revenue generating experiences for their user/client base.

Where is most of the metaverse funding going?

Most money is going into the purchase of real estate. We're currently experiencing an almost discovery of the America's opportunity just in the digital realm.

What opportunities there are for VCs investing in the metaverse, and how common it is at the moment?

You're investing in the potential digital real estate and related experiences and assets that will be worth countless times more in the near future. True economies are being built there with companies such as Adshares already creating billboards and advertising models for the real estate within while at Copernic Space we're integrating real space assets such as fractional ownership of actual space assets like fractional ownership in space. Meaning you can engage with a rover in a digital world that mirrors a rover in the real world and buy ownership or access to it.

What some of the potential challenges and difficulties when investing in the metaverse?

First off its mainly a crypto led environment so knowing your way around crypto is vital. Another is that it's still in a very early stage and the user activity and quality of experiences is still at a low level. There might be a hype movement with it right now but it still lacks a lot of functionality and quality to make it really scalable across a major segment of the market.

Is it a risk to invest in the metaverse, and why it may be worth taking this risk?

If there's no risk involved it's not an investment. But why it is worth it depends on your approach. Many people believe that the digital land they're buying will develop into a market comparable to people buying early plots of land in Manhattan before it was the Manhattan we know today. But that leads to another interesting dilemma around real estate approach in the metaverse. Land on earth is finite, limited supply is important, what happens when the physical limitations to supply etc. doesn't exist as it doesn't in the digital world. What stop from a never ending creation of worlds and therefore real estate. As a company applying web3 to space this is also a very interesting question when dealing with something with an asset supply that could potentially go on forever.

What might we see in the future?

We're going to see metaverses exhibit their own worlds while others will create worlds to recreate physical realities where real estate experiences and purchases will be pushed into the metaverse and variations of AR/VR as technology progresses. Meaning for example soon you should be able to 'experience' a real estate property in the metaverse that represents a real estate property in the real world and buy fractional ownership of it. For us as stated earlier we see huge benefit in the metaverse being an experiential interface with space and assets in space that converts into economic activity and access of various kinds to the actual asset in space.