Lightspeed’s Mercedes Bent on why the metaverse isn’t overhyped

We dove into a topic that tends to stir up strong emotions, even from those outside the metaverse, on the Chain Reaction podcast this week. Mercedes Bent is an investor at Lightspeed Venture Partners who focuses on consumer investments incryptocurrencies.

It's become like a punching bag, and I get excited about it.

The prospect of attending an event with tens of thousands of other attendees across the world in the metaverse is exciting. The potential for the metaverse to have an impact through education is something that Bent is enthusiastic about. She shared a hypothetical example of public school students being able to learn from the best instructors in the world in a metaverse similar to the movie Ready Player One. Lightspeed has investments in small-group live education platform Outschool, as well as other non-crypto consumer investments.

What will the metaverse look like? When asked if the metaverse had to be tied to virtual reality technology, she said she used to think so.

She realized that the metaverse has more to do with the sense of community it can foster than it does with how users access it.

I think what this era has shown is that it's not about the headset, it's about what physical apparatus you use.

The metaverse gained traction as a concept last year because it offered one thing that Second Life did not, which was the ability to transfer in-game currency to fiat currency. She believes that the switch was made possible by the use of cryptocurrencies.

The ability to use virtual goods in the real world to pay your rent bill is something that we didn't have before.

The metaverse new life was given by technological development and the start of the Pandemic.

Skeptics don't think the metaverse is backed by technology or user adoption. She said that skepticism is expected for early-stage consumer products.

These areas look really nonobvious. They don't have traction, they're just an idea. They are often from a founder who doesn't have the most experience, so you have to take a leap of faith. According to her website, her mission as an investor is to back early stage consumer companies that are unlocking wealth creation for underserved individuals and regions.

The idea that it's too early to fund consumer-facing companies that haven't yet developed their user experience is false.

There aren't many companies that have scaled to a mass audience yet. We have Metamask, which is pretty far along, but I think all of these companies are up for grabs.

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