Atmos Labs Completes $11M Seed Round to Power the Evolution of Metaverse-Native Sports

World gets first look at highly anticipated metaverse play-and-earn experience that brings virtual ownership to a new sci-fi universe.

Play-and-earn metaverse developer Atmos Labs, Inc. announces the close of an $11 million seed round for Atmos, a competition-based virtual world set in an expansive sci-fi universe and built to accelerate the advent of metaverse-native sports. Sfermion led the round, which included prominent investors Animoca Brands, Collab+Currency, FBG Capital, Alumni Ventures, RedBeard Ventures, DWeb3, LD Capital, GSR Markets Limited, CoinGecko Ventures, Avocado Guild, UniX Gaming, and more. The funding will be used to build the foundation of the virtual game world of Atmos, grow its community, and expand the Atmos team.

“People are going to congregate around the spectacle of competition in the metaverse just like they do in the physical world. We are building metaverse-native sports and entertainment — a category we believe will bring excitement and substance to the metaverse concept writ large.”

To date, competitive sports in virtual environments have enjoyed limited global adoption and have failed to definitively counter criticism from skeptics, such as doubts about the legitimacy of viewership and exclusive definitions of the term “sport”. However, with the advent of virtual reality spaces powered by blockchain technology, DeFi, and NFTs — the “metaverse” — legacy notions of gaming and sports stand to be upended, putting the gamer and even the spectator at the center of the ecosystem.

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Atmos, a new play-and-earn metaverse, is building an immersive experience that will pair an esports component with the fandom and sense of belonging that come with conventional sports in a new virtual universe. With the goal of igniting the category of metaverse-native sports, the game and its story are built by experienced veterans from the fields of gaming, crypto, automotive, industrial design, comic books, film, and more. Through NFTs, DeFi, and the principles of the emerging metaverse, Atmos players will not only play, but actually own their gear, teams, identities, and moments.

For Atmos Labs’ Founder and CEO Kevin Beauregard, Atmos is the next evolution of gaming. “People are going to congregate around the spectacle of competition in the metaverse just like they do in the physical world. We are building metaverse-native sports and entertainment — a category we believe will bring excitement and substance to the metaverse concept writ large.”

“Atmos is delivering a refreshing blend of stunning aesthetics, competition, and a real digital economy, all while maintaining that commitment to true ownership of in-world assets,” said Andrew Steinwold, managing partner of co-lead investor Sfermion. “The Atmos Labs founding team has brought together an incredibly talented group that one would expect for a company many times its age, from game design and mechanics to creative development.”

Atmos Labs’ VP of Game Design, Dylan Bushnell, added, “We’re committed to building a world in which players can generate value from gameplay, own and trade interoperable assets in non-exclusive marketplaces, and govern the ecosystems they helped create. Importantly, all blockchain-related integrations aside, the games we’re developing could stand on their own.”

Over the coming months, Atmos will launch a transmedia campaign to outline and explore canonical lore and drop an initial lot of playable items.

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