LA-based VR concert service AmazeVR raises $15M led by Partners Investment and Murex Partners, bringing its total funding to $30.8M, ahead of a Series B in 2022
Kate Park / TechCrunch :
Context & Ripple Effects
AmazeVR's $15M round lands mid-wave: within three months, VR game studio Alta closed a $12.4M seed at a $62M valuation and Sandbox VR raised a $37M Series B led by a16z, signaling that VR content and location-based entertainment are drawing capital again after the leaner 2017-2019 stretch, when ad-platform Immersv's $10.5M Series A was the more typical check size.
First-order effects
- AmazeVR gains the runway to reach its planned 2022 Series B, with Partners Investment and Murex Partners now anchoring a cap table that has backed $30.8M of total funding into VR concerts.
Second-order effects
- The raise sharpens a direct comparison with Wave, which raised a $30M Series B for live-music virtual events — the two now compete for the same artist and label partnerships, and for the same next-round investors sizing the category.
Third-order effects
- The funding pattern echoes the earlier cycle in which NextVR raised an $80M Series B in 2016 for VR broadcasting: investors are again underwriting VR live entertainment, but at smaller, vertical-specific checks — a sign the category is being funded as niche content businesses rather than platform bets.
The trend: VR live-entertainment funding is cycling back up, with investors writing vertical-specific checks for concert and events startups rather than the broad platform bets of the 2016 era.