Shimmery tank tops, strapless party dresses and designer sunglasses – They’re runway-ready looks. But they aren’t getting a New York fashion week debut – at least not in the traditional sense.
Wake Forest-based House of Blueberry deals in the metaverse with its styles distinguishing pavatars in video games such as Roblox and The Sims. And investors are buying in, as a new securities filing shows the company raised just under $6 million from two investors.
The 20-employee firm, led by serial entrepreneur Gizem Mishi McDuff, is one of several in the region betting on the metaverse – an interactive digital reality that some say could be the future. It’s a concept that may have been inconceivable a few years ago – profiting off of clothes you can’t even touch. But in an increasingly digital world, McDuff sees growing opportunities.
McDuff is a serial entrepreneur – cofounding multiple companies in her home country of Turkey. At age 15 she and her friends started a social network, called Xuqa, later selling it to Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT). The same group cofounded Peanut Labs, a marketing company focused on gaming. It sold to a large data company.
After studying computer engineering in college, McDuff was dabbling online and ran across a band, Sky Galaxy. In the description, it said “I do concerts on Second Life.”
“That was really interesting to me,” McDuff said of the platform, which allows people to create avatars and interact in an online world. “So I downloaded Second Life. I went to the concert.”
And it was “amazing.” She saw the venue depicted on the screen, the piano, the performer. And, most importantly, she saw the people.
“There were so many people in this venue, avatars,” McDuff said. “They all looked different. There are supermodels. There are fairies. Some are mythical. Some are street fashion. This was just mind-blowing for me.” – so much that she downloaded photoshop “and made myself a cute polka dress.”
At the next virtual concert, “people were asking me to buy that dress.” So she started making more dresses, creating a virtual store. Within three years, she made more than $1 million, she said.
The store grew to become House of Blueberry. The company was founded in 2012 in Turkey and moved its headquarters to the Triangle a few years ago – an obvious choice from a talent standpoint, McDuff said.
“There are so many game studios, art studios – it’s becoming a tech hub,” she said. The company is hiring – particularly for technical artists, programmers and community managers.
The House of Blueberry isn’t the only Triangle company in trying to capitalize on the emerging metaverse opportunity. Here’s a look at three others:
Holo-Light
Holo-Light is headquartered in Austria, but recently picked Durham over Atlanta for its U.S. headquarters as it develops its immersive streaming platform. Helmet Gulde, the firm’s chief corporate development officer, says the firm will play an integral role in helping the metaverse move forward.
“All of these ideas of metaverse will stay theory if you cannot break through the limitations of mobile devices, the technical limitations in terms of computing power, and that is the technology we are bringing to the table with streaming,” he said earlier this year.
This week, Gulde said the firm, now at five employees, is hiring right now and planning out its 2023.
Transmira
The Raleigh-based company, led by serial entrepreneur Robert Rice, describes itself as an augmented reality startup. The firm is developing technology aimed at making “it easy for brands, businesses, and content creators to monetize metaverse technologies, ranging from Augmented Reality to Virtual Reality.”
Rice describes it as “digital twins,” technology that helps recreate locations in the metaverse.
Epic Games
The Cary video-game giant, known for “Fortnite,” could be part of defining what the metaverse becomes, and not just through its games. That’s according to CEO Tim Sweeney, who has said it’s a critical time for deciding what the interactive, internet-driven social reality will look like.
