Facebook pays $60million to South Dakota bank Meta Financial Group to secure name rights
Facebook paid $60million to a bank in South Dakota called Meta Financial Group to secure the name rights for its 'metaverse' rebrand, a regulatory filing has revealed.
The Silicon Valley giant is banking on the Meta name as it seeks to market its new virtual reality world which it believes is the future of the internet.
Meta Financial said in regulatory filing on Monday that a Delaware company called Beige Key LLC agreed earlier this year to acquire the worldwide rights to its company names for $60 million in cash. It did not disclose who the owner of Beige Key was.
A Meta Platforms (Facebook) spokesman later confirmed: 'Beige Key is affiliated with us and we have acquired these trademark assets.'
The 'metaverse' is a set of virtual spaces where you can game, work and communicate with other people who aren't in the same physical space as you (pictured: CEO Mark Zuckerberg shows off his avatar in a space suit in the metaverse)
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is seen fencing in the 'Metaverse' with an Olympic gold medal fencer during a live-streamed virtual and augmented reality conference to announce the rebrand of Facebook as Meta, in this screen grab taken from a video released October 28
As well as offering products through its MetaBank subsidiary including consumer savings, loans and credit cards, and commercial lending, Meta Financial partners with institutions including government agencies and financial technology firms to offer banking services with the aim of bolstering financial inclusion.
Facebook said in October its parent company had changed its name to Meta Platforms.
The tech giant, which has invested heavily in virtual reality and augmented reality, sees the metaverse as the successor to the mobile internet.
Last week, Meta Platforms opened up its previously invite-only Horizon Worlds app, where users of its Quest virtual reality headsets can play games and interact as avatars, to over-18 users in the United States and Canada.
The metaverse concept, which has cropped up on several Silicon Valley companies' earnings calls and which will require cooperation among tech giants, could be more than a decade away from being fully realized.
The concept is a set of virtual spaces where you can game, work and communicate with other people who aren't in the same physical space as you.
Facebook explained: 'You'll be able to hang out with friends, work, play, learn, shop, create and more.
'It's not necessarily about spending more time online — it's about making the time you do spend online more meaningful.'
While Facebook is leading the charge with the metaverse, it explained that it isn't a single product one company can build alone.
'Just like the internet, the metaverse exists whether Facebook is there or not,' it added.
Zuckerberg announced in October that Facebook was changing its name to Meta
'And it won't be built overnight. Many of these products will only be fully realized in the next 10-15 years.'
A Meta Platforms spokesman confirmed the company was engaged in discussions with Meta Financial before Facebook's name change was announced.
In the filing, Meta Financial said it had embarked on a brand strategy review earlier this year, but the MetaBank spokesperson declined to comment on the negotiations beyond the contents of the filing.
Meta Financial's shares were trading 1.5% lower in mid-afternoon trading, giving it a market capitalization of around $1.74 billion. Meta Platforms was up 1.6%, valuing it at $933 billion.
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