Lighthouse Raises $7M to Be the ‘Google’ of the Metaverse

Amidst booming interest in virtual worlds, Web 3 startup Lighthouse has raised $7 million in a seed round to build out “the search engine of the open metaverse.”

The round was by co-led by Animoca Brands, Accel, BlockTower and with participation from White Star Capital, Sparkle Ventures and Gemini Frontier Fund, among others.

The funding will be used to grow the company’s headcount team, as its preparing to launch for the public this summer, a press release stated.

Lighthouse offers a database of all the active events going on in metaverse games like Decentraland and The Sandbox. Users can search through them while also looking for where users are in these virtual worlds. The firm explains:

“Concretely, what does Lighthouse do? The Lighthouse solution will enable users to search for places, events, creators, experiences, communities, and even friends across and within virtual worlds.”

To be searchable in the Lighthouse database, platforms themselves have to partner with the firm since most of the ecosystems do not have their data publicly available on-chain.

While Lighthouse is unsure if all closed metaverses will connect with them, the backing by Animoca Brands, is a positive sign. The Singapore-based investment is a large player in the NFT and Metaverse space. The firm currently has a portfolio of over 150 investments including The Sandbox, OpenSea, Dapper Labs and Sky Mavis (Axie Infinity).