Weird? Very. But Gamefam CEO Joe Ferencz says it was a winning combination that helped the startup score big during this year’s Super Bowl. Gamefam created the surreal five-game metaverse competition (which apparently involves SpongeBob avatar rewards) in partnership with Paramount and it turned out to be among the startup’s biggest hits of the year.

“We delivered 75 million visits to this promotion, and almost 350 million brand engagements in one billion minutes of play time,” Ferencz gushes. “Those stats would have made it the number ten all-time branded game on Roblox.” 

That’s kind of a big deal—even if you’ve opted to stop caring about “the metaverse” since it fell out of vogue. Turns out, there’s life in the metaverse after all, at least in some corners of it.

Gamefam, whose backers include Bessemer Venture Partners and Play Ventures, today released its annual report, “State of Brands on Roblox and Fortnite.” The report paints a clear picture of an industry that isn’t dead by any means: By 2030, Gamefam projects that there will be 900 million metaverse gamers and the market size will reach $168.4 billion.

Gamefam, which works with companies to introduce their intellectual property to Gen Z and Alpha on metaverse platforms, has worked with Disney, Mattel, and Fifa. These companies are interested in Roblox, as they try to get in front of Gen Z and Gen Alpha. (Gen Z and Alpha spend 39% more time on Roblox and Fortnite than TikTok and YouTube, according to Gamefam’s research.)

“Roblox is becoming an absolutely critical media platform, period,” said Ferencz, who’s been the CEO of Gamefam since 2019.

Roblox stock is up more than 30% over the course of this year, and it has 90 million daily active users, up about 29% year-over-year, per Gamefam’s report. In 2025, Ferencz expects that Roblox will attract more attention from brands. 

“Every major brand and IP owner is going to start understanding that Roblox is the next YouTube,” said Ferencz. “Roblox is no longer a niche or subculture, but has become culture itself for Gen Z and Gen Alpha.”

I asked Ferencz about the now-tarnished word “metaverse.” Though he ultimately prefers UGC (user-generated content) gaming, he isn’t hung up on terminology.

“The term metaverse was highly polluted by the NFT craze, which may or may not be coming back,” said Ferencz. “Nonetheless, the fundamentals of NFTs are that they’re a collection craze, for the sake of a collection. That’s great when it’s working. When it’s not, it doesn’t work. There’s no fundamental intrinsic value to these things, right? But when it comes to Roblox and gameplay—entertainment does have intrinsic value. People need entertainment. People need fun.”

And what’s more fun than SpongeBob in a football helmet? 

ICYMI…My colleague Leo Schwartz scooped the news that Slow Ventures is raising $275 million across two new funds.

See you tomorrow,

Allie Garfinkle
Twitter: @agarfinks
Email: alexandra.garfinkle@fortune.com
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VENTURE DEALS

- SandboxAQ, a Palo Alto-based AI and quantum techniques solutions provider, raised $300 million in funding from Fred Alger Management, T. Rowe Price Associates, Mumtalakat, and others.

- Stand, a San Francisco-based insurance provider for climate-impacted properties, raised $30 million in funding from Inspired Capital, Lowercarbon, Equal Ventures, and Convective Capital.

- Ask Sage, an Arlington, Va.-based generative AI solutions provider for the public, defense, and commercial sectors, raised $17 million in Series A funding. Sapphire Ventures led the round and was joined by Mucker Capital.

- Hauler Hero, a San Diego-based waste management operations optimization software, raised $10 million in seed funding. I2BF Global Ventures led the round and was joined by K5 Global, Somersault Ventures, Recall Capital, and others.

- Jome, an Austin-based AI-powered real estate marketplace, raised $9.8 million in Series A funding. Geek Ventures led the round and was joined by U.Ventures, Toloka VC, and Forefront VP.

- Mojave Energy Systems, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based energy-efficient HVAC system manufacturer, raised $9.5 million in Series A funding. Existing investors Fifth Wall and At One Ventures led the round and were joined by Earth Venture Capital and existing investors Myriad Venture Partners, Starshot Capital, and Alumni Ventures Group.

- General Proximity, a San Francisco-based induced proximity medicines developer, raised $8 million in funding. Aydin Senkut led the round and was joined by Y Combinator, age1, Modi Ventures, and Wilson Sonsini, and angel investors.

- Orqa, a Osijek, Croatia-based drone systems developer, raised €5.8 million ($6.1 million) in seed funding. Lightspeed Venture Partners led the round and was joined by Radius Capital, Decisive Point, and existing investor Day One Capital.

- Fraction AI, a New York City-based AI-assisted data labeling platform, raised $6 million in pre-seed funding. Spartan and Symbolic led the round and were joined by Borderless, Anagram, Foresight, and Karatage.

- Hamming.ai, a San Francisco-based AI voice agent reliability testing platform, raised $3.8 million in seed funding. Mischief led the round and was joined by YCombinator, AI Grant, Pioneer, angel investors, and others.

- Confido Health, a Jersey City, N.J.-based AI-powered digital workers developer for healthcare providers, raised $3 million in seed funding. Together Fund led the round and was joined by MedMountain Ventures, Rebellion VC, DeVC, Operators Studio, and others.

- Buildpeer, a San Pedro Garza García, Mexico-based construction management platform, raised $2.5 million in seed funding from Brick & Mortar Ventures.

- tiun, a Zurich-based younger audience engagement solutions platform for media providers, raised $2.5 million in pre-seed funding. Founderful led the round and was joined by Blue Wire Capital and angel investors.

- Simulation Theory, a San Diego-based compute solutions provider, raised $2 million in pre-seed funding. Larry Russ led the round and was joined by others.

PRIVATE EQUITY

- Ardian acquired a 22.6% stake and PIF acquired a 15% stake in Topco, the holding company for Heathrow Airport, from Ferrovial and others. Financial terms were not disclosed.

- Flexpoint Ford acquired a minority stake in Apollo Care, a Chicago-based patient access and commercial solutions provider for the healthcare industry. Financial terms were not disclosed.

EXITS

- L Squared Capital Partners acquired Kano Laboratories, a Nashville-based industrial penetrants and synthetic greases manufacturer, from Gryphon Investors. Financial terms were not disclosed.

OTHER

- Oncology Ventures, joined by Labcorp Ventures and Zentynel Ventures, acquired a minority stake in Biomakers, a Buenos Aires-based molecular testing, genetic diagnosis, and treatment provider. Financial terms were not disclosed.

- Perplexity acquired Carbon, a Seattle-based data retrieval engine for LLMs. Financial terms were not disclosed.

- Protege acquired Calliope Networks, a Los Angeles-based media content licensing aggregator for generative AI companies. Financial terms were not disclosed.

- SuperTruth acquired imaware, an Austin-based at-home health testing and diagnostics provider. Financial terms were not disclosed.

PEOPLE

- Left Lane Capital, a New York City-based venture capital firm, promoted Matt Miller to partner.

- Lux Capital, a New York City-based venture capital firm, added Thomas Reardon as a partner. Previously, he was at Meta.

- Matt Miller is leaving Sequoia Capital, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm, to launch a Europe fund.

- Siris, a New York City-based private equity firm, promoted Sandeep Guleria to partner, Dave Calamai to managing director, Kevin O'Brien to principal, Grant Weisberg to principal, and Matt Montaquila to vice president.

- Updata Partners, a Washington D.C.-based growth equity firm, promoted Braden Snyder to general partner.