The metaverse open virtual human platform "OPENVERSE" has completed over 100 million in Pre-A round financing and launched its first official fan metaverse new product

Author: Ben, 36K

36Kr has learned that the open virtual human platform OPENVERSE recently announced the completion of over 100 million in Pre-A round financing. At the same time, OPENVERSE released several videos featuring trendy social digital humans related to football and sports interacting and playing games in the metaverse virtual community before the World Cup.

This marks the first time that the 3D virtual avatars of football stars have been applied to real-time interactive fan metaverse scenarios since OPENVERSE officially announced the 3D virtual images of players in strategic partnership with Atlético Madrid on July 17, 2022. Fans can play football and socialize with superstars across time and space in this metaverse scenario. Meanwhile, historical club introductions, virtual merchandise displays, and real-time event information will also be synchronized in the metaverse virtual community.

Atlético Madrid's head coach Simeone releases digital collectible fragments in the virtual community

OPENVERSE provides a full-stack metaverse service that spans virtual human production and operation, digital asset operation, and virtual scene construction. Built on a middle platform based on AI, real-time 3D, and XR interactive technology capabilities, it offers metaverse community services for C-end users while also providing creative marketing solutions for B-end clients.

The core team of OPENVERSE comes from Alibaba's Damo Academy, Tencent, and the YC Andrew Ng Lab. The team has been working together for many years, with nearly a hundred people distributed across Singapore, North America, and various locations in China. They have also established a self-developed AI algorithm laboratory, holding relevant patents and intellectual property.

The fan metaverse is the first product release from the OPENVERSE team after quietly completing tens of millions in Pre-A round financing. Its core business has upgraded over the past three years from single digital human production marketing to a metaverse open virtual human platform centered around the Waou™ (self-developed virtual image). OPENVERSE is exploring the possibilities of metaverse social and gaming attributes.

2D and 3D art style transfer AI generation system

Waou™ is the new species of the metaverse launched by OPENVERSE. Its CEO Jo stated, "Virtual avatars (AVATAR) should not just be an empty shell that seems fake; they need a soul of content." Jo, based in Singapore, will be responsible for OPENVERSE's global expansion over the next year, promoting the Waou™ image, which is more meaningful and favored by users, aiming to generate high user engagement and expand richer multi-layered real-time interactions, creating more community gameplay and commercialization possibilities through cross-border integration and innovation.

The First Step in OPENVERSE's Deep Layout in the Metaverse Track

OPENVERSE believes that a "human-centered" approach can extend the IP value of virtual content. For individuals, organizations, and corporate brands, the extension and evolution of IP value centered around "people" can help them break free from the influence of a single entity or product lifecycle, uncovering higher-dimensional long-term value growth points and aggregating more groups that have affection and trust for the IP.

Thus, the charm of virtual humans comes from their warm, personalized appearance, interactive content with attitude, and the emotional resonance created and shared by fans linked to these characters.

OPENVERSE has been at the forefront of exploration in the AVATAR construction field, having independently developed a virtual character application technology platform three years ago. This platform can effectively combine clients' business needs and streamline the entire process of virtual character production, asset matching, material generation, and high-precision rendering. It includes efficient import and rapid matching of various precision virtual human assets, real-time audio conversion systems for virtual humans, SDKs for driving virtual humans, and rendering scheduling systems, ensuring high-quality and high-precision content output for users.

Based on industry know-how, OPENVERSE has proactively developed fragmented art styles and AI generation systems for 2D and 3D migration. Through artificial intelligence technology, it achieves rapid style conversion between different types of virtual humans, forming a new, unified model generation, content generation, and interaction standard, promoting creators to quickly enter the metaverse with various forms of virtual humans and seamlessly conduct style, space, and content conversions and connections.

Community: The New Core of Metaverse Social Interaction

The infrastructure of the mobile internet era can no longer meet the social and gaming experience needs of Generation Z and Alpha generation digital natives. Traditional market models are more focused on isolated and closed virtual avatar production, virtual content generation, driving, and XR scene development, lacking a continuous production, connection, and interaction solution centered around high-quality content that radiates various life scenarios from the perspective of "people," addressing the century-old question of "why users stay and play in the metaverse."

OPENVERSE states that virtual humans, as "virtual avatars" of real users, have enormous opportunities in game-like social scenarios. Virtual avatars are the perfect combination of technology and beauty and serve as the best entry point for the metaverse to enter commercial and other application scenarios. OPENVERSE excels in community content creativity and generation, and based on years of experience in virtual image construction and keen industry insights, it combines trendy culture with industrialized production, as well as AI algorithms and technology, to create a self-developed, aesthetically distinctive virtual human style—Waou™. Through the establishment, derivation, and interaction of these trend-recognizable images, it evolves a new metaverse community.

OPENVERSE's exclusive virtual human style—Waou™

In the future, OPENVERSE will also launch a user-oriented virtual avatar social app product called Openvibe, based on the foundational artistic visuals of Waou™. Users will be able to experience various magical metaverse scenes and interesting entertainment experiences in their own virtual community, participate in intimate interactions with brands, IPs, and idols, and even become builders of the creative sharing economy, achieving a new experience of earning while playing in the metaverse.

Helping B-end Clients Accelerate Entry into the Metaverse

OPENVERSE provides enterprise-level clients with a complete end-to-end metaverse innovative marketing solution, including high-standard technical service capabilities, content production capabilities, and IP operation incubation capabilities, helping B-end enterprises build brand metaverses centered around AVATAR. It deeply integrates artistic aesthetics with AI technology, designing, establishing, and creating solutions centered around brand virtual characters, facilitating the IP transformation of virtual characters and their applications across multiple scenes and forms, embracing a new ecosystem of metaverse interaction.

OPENVERSE has already established numerous core technological advantages in the field of metaverse services, especially in virtual community construction. Specifically, these include: AI-accelerated generation tools for 3D assets within the community, fragmented art style integration and AI generation systems for 2D and 3D migration, rapid construction of real-time interactive scenes, distributed metaverse simultaneous high-concurrency network optimization, and cross-platform virtual space connectivity.

"We often say that a flower represents a world. A talented virtual avatar can also gather more people and master the flow of traffic through quality content, thus forming its own 'metaverse'," Jo concluded. "OPENVERSE insists on developing the multi-end virtual avatar Waou™ as the core, which reflects our determination to successfully build a cross-metaverse open virtual human platform in the future."