The sale, to Virbela’s cofounders Alex Howland and Erik Hill, closed at the end of November. It comes at a time when virtual worlds and the metaverse have waned as a topic of excitement.
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EXp World Holdings, parent to eXp Realty, has sold off the Virbela platform that created its virtual metaverse environment, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The filing states that the sale closed on Nov. 29. Virbela cofounders Alex Howland and Erik Hill — who also served as Virbela’s president and vice president, respectively — acquired the company from eXp.
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Howland and Hill had continued with Virbela after eXp acquired the company in 2018. The filing reveals that in exchange for the firm they founded, the two executives waived a total of $252,100 in severance that they were entitled to get after being terminated from eXp. Their terminations were completed when the Virbela sale closed.
However, the SEC filing does not mention any other payments Howland and Hill made to re-acquire Virbela.
In a statement to Inman Friday, eXp said that the transaction “ensures that the platform remains in the hands of its visionary leaders, who are well-positioned to explore innovative ways to evolve and monetize the application-based software.”
“The key financial terms included the waiver of severance by the founders and the assumption of ongoing liabilities by the buyer entity,” the statement adds.
News of the sale was first reported in early December by Investing.com. Real Estate News then reported on the story this week.
Despite the sale, eXp will continue to offer a virtual world to agents. The company’s statement notes that beginning in 2024, agents began showing a preference for “web-accessible platforms and AI-driven solutions” instead of app-based options such as Virbela. In response, the company “leaned into this shift, focusing on Frame, our cutting-edge browser-based platform that offers unparalleled ease of access and collaboration.”
“FrameVR.io continues to power our virtual workplace, eXp World, which remains a cornerstone of our culture and global connectivity,” the statement continued. “This transition aligns with our commitment to innovation and ensures our community can seamlessly connect and collaborate regardless of location, reinforcing eXp’s position as a leader in the virtual space.”
EXp first announced that it was acquiring Virbela in 2018. The company did not say at the time how much it paid for the platform, which it had been using since 2016 to offer a cloud-based virtual world to agents and staff. In the years following the acquisition, eXp and founder Glenn Sanford often touted the virtual world as a key differentiator for the company. In 2020, Sanford offered a detailed tour of the virtual world — which some observers have likened to the video game Second Life — at Inman Connect New York.
More recently, however, eXp virtual world has appeared to take a backseat to other differentiators. Inman has reported extensively on brokerages’ recent battles for top agent talent, and eXp has often made headlines for its victories in the so-called recruiting wars. However, those newly recruited agents and team leaders have rarely, if ever, singled out eXp’s virtual world as among the things that drew them to the company.
Last month, Inman also spoke with eXp Realty Chief Marketing Officer Wendy Forsythe about recruiting for the ongoing talking talent series. The conversation touched on company culture, revenue sharing, and other topics — but Virbela, virtual worlds, and the metaverse never came up in the conversation.
EXp’s move to emphasize other aspects of its business appears to have coincided with a broader cooling interest in virtual worlds. In recent years, for example, Facebook began investing heavily in its own metaverse project. However, by early 2024 the project was reportedly costing the company billions, and some reports indicated the company was quietly moving on from the concept. Today, the concept is rarely mentioned — either by Facebook, eXp, or any other company — as the next exciting technological frontier.
Update: This story was updated after publication with a statement eXp provided to Inman.