DePIN x Spatial Computing

Welcome back to DePIN Snacks! Each week, we cover a recent web2 startup fundraise and explore why crypto-based networks will win long-term.

Today’s topic: 3D Maps.

Last week, Infinite Reality raised a $3B round (yes, with a B) at a $12B valuation for its spatial computing platform that helps brands & creators build 3D experiences.

In 2024, the company went on an aggressive spree of acquisitions in a quest to own every layer of the spatial computing stack, buying Landmark ($450m), Drone Racing League ($250m), Ethereal Engine ($75m), Zappar ($45m), Action Face ($10m), and Stakes ($8m) in stock. Based on publicly-disclosed info, Infinite Reality increased its share count by ~20% to fund all the M&A, on top of the 25% dilution from last week’s raise. The goal? To corner the market for 3D maps and content.

Each of the acquisitions brought one of three things to the Infinite Reality ecosystem: content, talent or technology. Landmark and Zappar brought hundreds of brand relationships including Nestle, NBC, Univision, Coca-Cola, Mastercard; Ethereal Engine built an in-browser 3D rendering engine, Action Face built software to generate custom 3D avatars from selfies, and Stakes built a mobile game engine; and Drone Racing League provides access to an entire community future 3D content creators—drone racers. Finally, the company owns an XR production studio, a creator talent agency, a digital marketing agency, and several e-sports teams, and signed a 5-year deal with Google Cloud, positioning itself as a one-stop shop spatial computing platform.

Infinite Reality’s closest competitor is Niantic, the developer of PokemonGo, which was last valued at $9B in 2021 and announced a new spatial computing division in November 2024. Niantic leverages PokemonGo’s global user base of 30m MAUs to map key locations for its 3D map as part of the core gaming experience. The company claims 10m+ scanned locations, with ~170k of those currently available to developers.

While they have different strategies for getting there there, both companies share the same long-term goal:

• build relationships with brands & creators who own the IP behind 3D content

• build the tools that developers and designers use to create 3D content

• build a real-time 3D map of the world on which to overlay AR/XR experiences

The company that achieves all three first will be in a position to own the collaborative spatial computing platform that will play critical role in high-growth industries from AR/XR to robotics, drones, autonomous vehicles, e-mobility, and more. If the IPO window re-opens in 2025, it’s a good bet that one of these two companies will be one of the largest IPOs of the year. You can try the platforms out for yourself by using their webapps to create a 3D content with Infinite Reality (IRStudio) or Niantic (8th Wall).

If you read our annual State of DePIN report co-published with Messari last week, you know we’re excited about DePIN’s ability to bootstrap the ultimate spatial computing platform (pg 78-81). We discussed four projects - Auki, Meshmap, OverTheReality, & Funes - that are taking different approaches to a similar long-term goal of building the most powerful 3D map for humans, robots and agents/avatars to collaborate.

Since a demo’s worth a thousand words: we highly recommend using OVR’s developer platform to create a 3D scene for yourself in minutes: you can embed free 3D assets, buy NFTs from OVR’s 3D asset marketplace, or upload your own scan using apps like Scaniverse or Polycam; if you’re into urban exploring, check out Funes’ catalogue of 120+ landmarks rendered in incredible detail in your browser, e.g. this abandoned coal plant in Hegang, China; if you live in NYC, San Juan, or Tokyo, follow Meshmap on X to stay tuned to attend their next immersive AR experience; and don’t forget to order a $10 portal kit from Auki to turn your home into your very own posemesh domain.

Two days before Infinite Reality’s announced a $3B fundraise, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang went on stage at CES to lay out his vision for Physical AI - an opportunity much bigger than generative and agentic AI - alongside the launch of their Cosmos world foundation model trained on 20 million hours of video for robotics and AV use cases.

For machines to interact with the real-world, they need a machine perception network to understand their position within and relationship to the world around them. In the words of Nils Pihl, Founder & CEO of Auki Labs, “When humans visit the digital world, we visit websites. When digital things come visit us in the physical world, they will be visiting posemesh domains.”

If you’re building at the intersection of DePIN and spatial computing, reach out to me on twitter @danconia_crypto or telegram @salgala.