Welcome to Gather Town, the $700 million low-res online universe spreading like wildfire across Silicon Valley, college campuses and, soon, a workplace near you.
hen Phillip Wang was pitching Gather, his six-month-old startup, to VCs in late 2020, he would invite them up to the rooftop above his office. The space is a sweet spot to discuss a deal, illuminated by the neon green lights of a sprawling city framed by clouds in pink and orange hues. Best of all, he could brag to potential investors about the price. For a company Gather’s size—25 employees at the time—it ran just $175 a month to rent the entire building.
To the spiky-haired 23-year-old CEO, the metaverse is already here, and it’s rather friendly and welcoming. Instead of a sleek alternate reality, Gather’s virtual world is decidedly low-res, evoking the nostalgic feel of a 20-year-old Pokémon video game. Users move their 2D avatars around with the arrow keys on their keyboard, panning into and out of video chat conversations as they stroll past other folks.
By May 2020, they had exhausted their $150,000 Y Combinator check. Wang and Jaffer proposed a detour toward more monetizable gatherings like academic conferences, which had shifted online. Tabrizi disagreed. Wang and Jaffer split off, launching Gather with MIT grads Alex Chen and Nate Foss, whom Wang had met during college internships.
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