Lighthouse Raises $7M to Be the Search Engine of the Metaverse

With a plethora of metaverses (and even a MetaMetaverse) emerging in recent months, there are now things to do in virtual worlds, but a clean, easy-to-use search tool for finding them remains elusive.

That's why Web 3 startup Lighthouse has raised a $7 million seed round to build out “the search engine of the open metaverse.”

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

The company plans to use the funding to grow its team, targeting this summer for its public launch, according to a press release.

Lighthouse allows users to search through a database of all the active events going on in metaverse games like Decentraland and The Sandbox, while also being able to search for where users themselves are in these virtual worlds.

Read more: A Crypto Guide to the Metaverse

The company’s vision is in line with conceptions of the metaverse that date back to the summer of 2021, when the metaverse was envisioned more as one large, interoperable landscape rather than pockets of closed ecosystems.

Because much of the data for these ecosystems isn’t publicly available on-chain, the platforms themselves have to partner with Lighthouse to be searchable in its database.

Lighthouse says it’s unsure if every closed metaverse will open itself up to its search engine, but backing by firms like Animoca Brands suggests some projects are already on board.

“The closed ecosystem narrative is something that’s not super aligned with the value of Web 3,” Jonathan Brun, co-founder of Lighthouse, told CoinDesk in an interview. “So far, in every single conversation that we’ve had, we’ve been warmly received by players who see our platform as a tool that can help their ecosystems.”