AMKM Investments, founded by Sheikh Ahmed bin Mana bin Khalifa Saeed Al Maktoum, has invested in www.Branch.gg , a US-based startup building the “Discord of the Metaverse”. A communication and community tool that lives inside a virtual world. Some call it “Minecraft 2.0”. Branch just calls it “Your space to be together”.
Branch was founded in 2020 by Dayton Mills and Kai Micah Mills, avid Minecraft builders for over a decade.
A spatial virtual world, Branch is a virtual world where you move around like a video game. You can only hear and be heard by people near you. Which means you can walk in and out of conversations just like in real life. You have the option of spatial video as well. No exchanging zoom links, just walk up to the person you want to stream video with. You can also create your own character looks, build your own virtual office to meet with co-workers, create a home to meet with family, or nightclub as a place to meet up with friends.
Nothing to download, you can run Branch from your favorite browser and spawn in anytime. Frictionless, fun, and free.
“We are extremely bullish on the Metaverse as a whole, and we think we are in the earliest stages of even understanding just how large the space will become. Gen-Z will not work, learn, play, earn, or spend in the same way as their parents did, which is now obvious, but still in its earliest days. We invested in Branch because we are confident Branch has built one of the best teams, and products, in the world. We were huge fans of the platform and founders since day one. It’s one of our most exciting investments to date, and we know that it has huge potential in the GCC as well. Countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE are huge gaming capitals with an extremely young demographic. This region will understand and fall in love with Branch after their first encounter with it.” – Derrick Branford, CIO, AMKM Investments.
AMKM Investments makes up one-half of Dubai’s dxb.fund, which already had investment exposure to Branch in a previous round, as LPs. The dxb.fund family includes Sheikh Ahmed bin Mana bin Khalifa Saeed Al Maktoum, Sheikh Khalid bin Mansour bin Ahmed Al Thani, and Derrick Branford.
