To celebrate storong, passionate, independent women, we decided to share with you the story of five successful metaverse companies founded and led by females. Happy International Women’s Day from the Metaverser’s Guide!
Everyrealm
The New York-based Everyrealm launched almost a year ago, in April 2021, as an arm of the real estate fintech company Republic. Today the company operates as a private, independent entity and is aiming to become a leader in bringing NFT and metaverse innovation to the world. Its investment portfolio includes 25 metaverse platforms, more than 3,000 NFTs as well as more than 100 metaverse real estate developments.
The company has received significant support from the tech world. It has already got funding of a total of USD 66.3 million in two rounds – Seed round in October 2021 (USD 6.3 million, led by Galaxy Interactive) and Series A round in February 2022 (USD 60 million, led by Andreessen Horowitz).
The company’s CEO is Janine Yorio. A Yale and Oxford graduate, Yorio was the CEO and Founder of fintech and real estate App Compound, which was acquired by Republic in June 2020. She also served as Head of Republic Realm & Managing Director at Republic.
Meta Angels
Meta Angels uses NFTs to promote diversity. The company was cofounded by Alex Cavoulacos and Allyson Downey. Prior to launching Meta Angels, Cavoulacos founded The Muse – the first values-based job search site. She is also the author of “The New Rules of Work”, which turned into a national bestseller. Allyson Downey, Cavoulacos’s partner, is also the CEO and co-founder of weeSpring, a start-up helping prospective parents gain support and advice from their friends about what they need for their kid. Downey is also the CEO of Stellar Reviews, which helps companies generate their earliest reviews on new product releases. The artist behind Meta Angel’s NFT collection is Māori-Australian artist, muralist, and ceramicist Sarana Haeata.
Women Rise
Women Rise is another women-led company that uses NFTs to support and promote diversity within the metaverse space. Behind the successful project is internationally renowned artist Maliha Abidi. The NFT collection consists of 10,000 randomly generated and unique pieces representing women from all around the world, with their traits going far beyond different skin colors!
The Hunt
Women-led company The Hunt is the first marketplace combining augmented reality (AR), blockchain and computer vision (CV). The platform allows users to discover, buy and showcase NFTs and augmented reality physical products all in one place. The Hunt was co-founded by two women – Natalia Diaz and Sagan Albert. Diaz is also the Founder and CEO of Small Wonder Digital which in the past seven years turned into a leading technology agency. Albert is an entrepreneur with over 12 years of experience mainly in the Hollywood entertainment space. She is also the Head of Creative, Branding & Strategy at Small Wonder Digital.
BuzzAR
BuzzAR is Southeast Asia’s first woman-led metaverse startup and recently it raised USD 3.8 million seed funding with F50 Elevate as a lead investor. The main goal of the company is to make NFT creation possible to everyone globally. One of the company’s founders is UC Berkeley alumni Bell Beh. Beh is also the CEO of Play Spirit VR. Together with her childhood friend Ken Lim, she is revolutionizing the Web 3.0 space one step at a time.
This is just a very, very small part of all women in the industry. Incredible women – innovators and experts. Actually, behind every great project out there, stands at least one strong woman! Sometimes it is the mother of the founder. Sometimes it is his wife. Sometimes, it is the founder herself! The Metaverser’s Guide is not an exception!
