Kippo, the Dating App for Gamers, Is Selling NFT ‘Land’ in Its Metaverse – dot.LA

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Decerry Donato is dot.LA's Editorial Fellow. Prior to that, she was an editorial intern at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.
Earlier this year, the Los Angeles-based startup launched a virtual world within its app called the Kippoverse, which allows users to virtually go on dates and participate in shared experiences. While Kippo started out in 2019 as a dating app catering to gamers, it has since looked to cast a wider net to include people interested in platonically hanging out with friends and meeting new people virtually.

Land you can purchase in Kippo’s metaverse.

Courtesy of Kippo

Land you can purchase in Kippo’s metaverse.
Courtesy of Kippo
“We found that the core experience people really love is just hanging out in groups and chatting,” Kippo co-founder and CEO David Park told dot.LA. “We hear people saying they had to go out and buy battery packs because they spend eight hours a day on Kippo.”
Beginning Thursday, Kippo users can purchase 5,000 plots of “land”—non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that give them a presence in the Kippoverse—for 4 SOL each. (SOL, the native cryptocurrency of the Solana blockchain platform, currently trades at more than $31.). Kippoverse landowners can then create in-app experiences like exclusive parties and get-togethers, and can also charge for admission to events that take place on their “land.”
Park compared the platform to Minecraft, the popular sandbox video game where gamers can build things in a virtual 3D world. “Minecraft is probably one of, if not the predecessor to this entire concept of the metaverse,” Park told dot.LA. “The core difference of what we’re building is that most of these platforms are gamer-focused; our core experience is the social aspect.”
There is no limit to how many plots of NFT real estate each Kippo user can purchase. The startup is keeping 500 of its 5,500 plots for itself, so that it can reserve that space for free and “cool” experiences within the app, according to Park. Kippo also plans to partner with different companies, including indie game studios, to create experiences on those plots.

While Kippo is currently only available via its mobile app, Park said the company is in the process of building a web version of its platform. Kippo is also developing an in-app currency that will allow users to more easily transact within the Kippoverse and purchase items to build out their “land.”
Decerry Donato is dot.LA's Editorial Fellow. Prior to that, she was an editorial intern at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.
Kristin Snyder is an editorial intern for dot.la. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
In this week’s edition of “Raises”: a local fintech startup raised $167 million to make it much easier to pay for parking spots, while software startups in Santa Barbara and Irvine also landed large funding rounds.
Metropolis Technologies, an L.A.-based fintech and “mobility commerce” platform, raised a $167 million Series B funding round co-led by 3L Capital and Assembly Ventures.
Overair, a Santa Ana-based electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft startup, raised a $145 million investment from Hanwha Group.
Invoca, a Santa Barbara-based AI software platform, raised an $83 million Series F funding round led by Silver Lake Waterman.
Performio, an Irvine-based sales commission software company, raised a $75 million growth investment led by JMI Equity.
Moleaer, a Carson-based agriculture technology startup, raised a $40 million Series C financing round led by Apollo Global Management.
C-Zero, a Santa Barbara-based clean energy company focused on natural gas decarbonization, raised a $34 million financing round led by SK Gas.
Tango, an L.A.-based platform that streamlines process documentation, raised a $14 million Series A funding round led by Tiger Global Management.
XENDEE, a San Diego-based software provider for distributed energy resources planning and operation, raised $12 million in Series A financing led by Anzu Partners.
Tellie, an L.A.-based sitebuilder for Web3creators, raised a $10 million Series A funding round from investors including Malibu Point Capital, Galaxy Digital, Osage Venture Partners, Dapper Labs, SXSW Innovation Fund and Gaingels.
Saysh, Olympic track and field athlete Allyson Felix’s L.A.-based lifestyle brand, raised an $8 million Series A funding round led by IRIS Ventures and Athleta.
Alpha Edison, a Westwood-based venture capital firm, is looking to raise $340 million for its third fund, per an SEC filing.
Kairos Ventures, a Beverly Hills-based early-stage venture capital firm investing in life sciences startups, raised $58 million for its third fund.
Raises is dot.LA’s weekly feature highlighting venture capital funding news across Southern California’s tech and startup ecosystem. Please send fundraising news to Decerry Donato (decerrydonato@dot.la).
Kristin Snyder is an editorial intern for dot.la. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
Decerry Donato is dot.LA's Editorial Fellow. Prior to that, she was an editorial intern at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.
Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He previously covered technology and entertainment for TheWrap and reported on the SoCal startup scene for the Los Angeles Business Journal. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter at @Samsonamore. Pronouns: he/him
SpaceX has reportedly fired several employees who were involved in writing and circulating an open letter that criticized CEO Elon Musk.
The firings were first reported Thursday by the New York Times, which noted that SpaceX employees began sharing the letter—which labeled Musk’s public behavior and social media activity as “a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment”—on Wednesday. Reuters subsequently reported that at least five SpaceX employees had been fired, though the exact number remains unclear. SpaceX did not return dot.LA’s request for comment.
The open letter was shared in an internal Microsoft Teams channel featuring more than 2,600 SpaceX employees, according to The Verge. The document called for the Hawthorne-based aerospace company to “publicly address and condemn Elon’s harmful Twitter behavior” and to “swiftly and explicitly separate itself from Elon’s personal brand.” Musk is a contentious presence on Twitter, which he is currently in the midst of acquiring via a $44 billion takeover bid.
“As our CEO and most prominent spokesperson, Elon is seen as the face of SpaceX—every Tweet that Elon sends is a de facto public statement by the company,” the open letter read. “It is critical to make clear to our teams and to our potential talent pool that his messaging does not reflect our work, our mission, or our values.”
The letter also asked SpaceX to “hold all leadership equally accountable” for the company’s workplace culture and to “define and uniformly respond to all forms of unacceptable behavior”—adding that the company was failing to live up to its stated “no asshole” and “zero tolerance” policies.
In an email obtained by the Times, SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell said the company had “terminated a number of employees involved” in the letter.
“The letter, solicitations and general process made employees feel uncomfortable, intimidated and bullied, and/or angry because the letter pressured them to sign onto something that did not reflect their views,” Shotwell wrote. “We have too much critical work to accomplish and no need for this kind of overreaching activism.”
Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He previously covered technology and entertainment for TheWrap and reported on the SoCal startup scene for the Los Angeles Business Journal. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter at @Samsonamore. Pronouns: he/him
Christian Hetrick is dot.LA's Entertainment Tech Reporter. He was formerly a business reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and reported on New Jersey politics for the Observer and the Press of Atlantic City.
TikTok’s data on U.S. users was repeatedly accessed in China by employees of parent company ByteDance, according to a new report from BuzzFeed News that raises fresh privacy concerns about the Chinese-owned social media app.
The news outlet obtained audio recordings from more than 80 internal TikTok meetings, which revealed that engineers in China had access to U.S. data from September 2021 to at least January 2022. In some situations, U.S.-based TikTok workers had to rely on their Chinese colleagues to access American users’ data, BuzzFeed reported on Friday.
“Everything is seen in China,” a member of TikTok’s Trust and Safety department said in a September 2021 meeting, according to the report.
Culver City-based TikTok has faced scrutiny over its handling of U.S. user data due to concerns that information on Americans could fall into the hands of China’s government. Former President Donald Trump, whose administration took a particularly tough stance toward China, sought to force a sale of the hugely popular social media startup and even tried to ban TikTok from U.S. app stores.
“As we've publicly stated, we've brought in world-class internal and external security experts to help us strengthen our data security efforts,” a TikTok spokesperson said in a statement to dot.LA. “This is standard industry practice given the complexity of data security challenges.”
The spokesperson added that TikTok recently created a new department with U.S.-based leadership “to provide a greater level of focus and governance” on U.S. data security. “The creation of this organization is part of our ongoing effort and commitment to strengthen our data protection policies and protocols, further protect our users, and build confidence in our systems and controls.”
In the wake of the Buzzfeed article on Friday, TikTok announced that it had migrated all of its U.S. user traffic to servers operated by American software giant Oracle, which has long been floated as a TikTok data partner that could help assuage U.S. security concerns.
“We still use our U.S. and Singapore data centers for backup, but as we continue our work we expect to delete U.S. users' private data from our own data centers and fully pivot to Oracle cloud servers located in the U.S.,” Albert Calamug of TikTok’s U.S. Security Public Policy team wrote in a blog post.
Calamug added that TikTok would work with Oracle to develop data management protocols in an attempt to “give users even more peace of mind.”
Christian Hetrick is dot.LA's Entertainment Tech Reporter. He was formerly a business reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and reported on New Jersey politics for the Observer and the Press of Atlantic City.
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