$400M funding round for Gemini’s decentralized metaverse

$400M funding round for Gemini’s decentralized metaverse

Gemini, the Winklevoss twins’ crypto exchange, has said it would allocate capital from its $400-million funding round to build a “Gemini experience” in various different Metaverses.

Gemini has officially communicated of having closed a $400-million equity growth funding round at a $7.1 billion valuation on November 18, marking the first time the company had sought outside financing. 

Morgan Creek Digital had been leading the round with participation from 10T, Newflow Partners, ParaFi and Marcy Venture Partners, among others.

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia, which is also in partnership with Gemini for launching the first crypto trading services offered by the big four Australian banks, has also backed the round.

The announcement said that with this round of financing, Gemini would continue bringing simple, secure, and innovative products to market, as well as “advance its geographic expansion.”

In an interview with Forbes, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss have outlined their plans of expanding Gemini’s reach into the metaverse.

Tyler has noted that instead of building numerous “branches in meatspace,” which is a reference to the famous meme-based description of physical reality, the firm is aiming at spreading itself across multiple metaverses.

Tyler extended that they would be building “a Gemini experience” in various “different Metaverses” where one can go into Gemini and trade. This would then be “immersive instead of on the phone.”

According to Forbes, the twins would reportedly retain 75 per cent of ownership over Gemini, while Morgan Creek general partner Sachin Jaitly would be joining the board of directors as part of his company’s $75-million investment into the crypto platform.

The move is set to once again bring the duo into competition with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, whom they had famously battled in court over the ownership of rights of Facebook over a decade ago. 

The twins had sued Zuckerberg in 2004, alleging that he had stolen their intellectual property in creating Facebook, and further went on to settle in court in for $65 million in 2011.

Cameron had emphasized to Forbes that unlike the primarily centralized roadmap for the metaverse from firms “like Facebook or Fortnite,” Gemini is aimed for a highly decentralized route in their belief that it offers “greater upside for the user.”

Cameron continued that decentralized Metaverse is a different path that gives a “greater choice, independence and opportunity” as well as there is a technology that promises to “protect the rights and dignity of individuals.”

“Decentralization is a spectrum,” Cameron stated, noting that they want to continue moving down the spectrum “toward empowerment.”

The twins have snapped up plots of land in The Sandbox metaverse at the beginning of April, while Tyler noted at the time that the original plans were Gemini’s crypto exchange and nonfungible token marketplace Nifty Gateway in the play-to-earn focused virtual world.