BUD, a nascent app trying to create a metaverse where Gen Z can play and interact with each other, has closed another round of funding in three months.
The Singapore-based startup told TechCrunch that it had raised $36.8 million in a Series B round led by Sequoia Capital India, not long after securing a Series A renewal in February. The new infusion takes BUD’s total funding to over $60 million.
As with BUD’s previous rounds, this funding round attracted a handful of prominent China-focused investors — ClearVue Partners, NetEase, and Northern Light Venture Capital. Existing investors GGV Capital, Qiming Venture Partners and Source Code Capital also participated in the round.
Founded in 2019 by two former Snap engineers, Risa Feng and Shawn Lin, BUD allows users to create chubby 3D characters, cute virtual assets, and colorful experiences using drag-and-drop and no coding background.
The company declined to reveal the size of its active users, but said its users have created over 15 million custom experiences, i.e. virtual rooms with gameplay that others can join, since the app’s launch in November. Virtual assets, including costumes and accessories that users design for characters, have changed hands more than 150 million times on BUD’s marketplace.
These transactions are clearly a promising way to generate revenue, but BUD does not charge commissions for now. It also hasn’t started making money through the app in any other way.
Perhaps partly due to its free and ad-free nature, the app ranks in the top 10 social apps in nearly 40 countries across North America, Southeast Asia, and South America. According to market research company SensorTower, it is currently the best free social Android app in Thailand and Vietnam.
Apps like Roblox and South Korea’s Zepeto have also made it easier for anyone to design virtual characters and rooms. BUD is taking the user experience one step further with plans to launch a marketplace for non-fungible tokens (NFTs). This means that ownership of virtual items sold on BUD is recorded on the blockchain. Resale of digital assets is likely to become possible in the form of NFTs, which can be more easily verified for authenticity and provenance.
BUD declined to disclose what chain the NFT project will be on or what tokens it will use, but said the marketplace will be “live soon.”
“While BUD enables the creation of 3D content for mainstream Gen Z consumers, we will continue to bring blockchain to mainstream consumers and allow our developers to truly own and monetize their creations,” Lin said in a statement.
The company is rapidly expanding and has a team of 130 employees spread across its Singapore headquarters, Shenzhen and US offices