While Meta tries to convince users to attend virtual work meetings in its metaverse, ForeVR gamesa VR gaming startup with casual games like bowling, darts and cornhole, reminds us that virtual reality should be fun.
ForeVR today announced a $10 million Series A funding round, which will be used to build its game portfolio and cement itself as the “Wii Sports of VR”. Lobby Capital led the Series A funding round with participation from Bessemer Venture Partners and Galaxy Interactive. The new capital brings the company’s total amount raised to $18.5 million. Angel investors include Mark Pincus, founder of Zynga, and founders of Twitch, Emmett Shear and Justin Kan.
Like Wii Sports, ForeVR games are designed to be easy to play. Since its launch in 2020, ForeVR has released three games: ForeVR Bowl ($20), ForeVR darts ($10) and the latest addition, ForeVR Cornhole ($15).
ForeVR games can be played in single-player or multiplayer on the Meta Quest or Meta Quest 2. Players can unlock skins for their cornhole beanbags/boards, darts and bowling balls, listen to music through YouTube-powered jukeboxes and various “halls” and bowling alleys such as bowling in Atlantis or darts in a British pub.
In addition, the games are all interconnected, so if a player owns multiple ForeVR games, they can meet friends through in-game portals, allowing them to “bowl on the moon and then go straight to a ForeVR pool hall in Texas via the portals,” CEO and co-founder Marcus Segal told ukbusinessupdates.com.
Thanks to the company’s latest funding, the “ForeVRse,” as Segal likes to call it, will continue to expand. The company is poised to launch its fourth title, ForeVR Poola virtual reality 8-ball pool game for all ages, on November 17th. It will be available on the Meta Quest Store for $20.
Earlier this month, Meta boasted that of the more than 400 apps on the Quest Store, more than a third are generating millions in revenue. While Segal wouldn’t reveal exactly how much revenue ForeVR has made, he told ukbusinessupdates.com it crossed the $1 million mark.
Segal also said that as legs are coming to Meta’s avatars, ForeVR plans to “take advantage of that technology” when the time comes.
Image Credits: ForeVR games
