Hollywood Comes To The Metaverse As Display Social, Thunder Studios And Infinite Reality Combine To Form A Multi-Billion Dollar Metaverse Entertainment Company

Through the convergence of social media, gaming, and entertainment in the Metaverse, the combined company will empower the creator economy with a suite of tools to broaden commerce between creators and fans.

Social media e-commerce platform Display Social, better known as the “social that pays,” today announced it has successfully completed the acquisition of both Thunder Studios and Infinite Reality. The combined entity will infuse the creator economy with an unprecedented suite of creative tools covering social, gaming, virtual and remote production, NFT minting, and metaverse creation. The consolidating companies are not disclosing details of the transaction.

With their robust combined assets, the combined company is set to offer a unique combination of metaverse creation tools, an integrated social platform for creators, and a 150,000 square foot Los Angeles-based facility featuring virtual production capabilities, an esports arena, dedicated XR stage, and motion capture and volumetric stages. The immediate focus will be to develop web-based, open metaverse tools for creators to bring Hollywood-quality production value to content broadcast in and from the metaverse.

Display Co-Founder and CEO John Acunto will continue as CEO of the combined companies, and Thunder Studios CEO Rodric David will serve as President. The broader Infinite Reality leadership team is set to include Elliott Jobe as Chief Innovation Officer, O.D. Welch as Chief Operating Officer and Helix Wolfson as Head of Production, who will join the Display Social executive team, Sean Cross as Co-Founder and President, Global Business Development and Revenue, Scot Weisberg as Co-Founder and Chief Financial Officer, Eric Cohen as Executive Vice President, Amy Savo as Chief Technology Officer, Chris Emme as Chief Revenue Officer.

“This is one of the biggest metaverse mergers to date, bringing together social media that pays the creative community, the most amazing team of metaverse builders from Infinite Reality, and the top independent production studio in California,” says John Acunto, Co-Founder and CEO of Display. “This business combination will create a disruption not seen in decades, and we intend to quickly become a market leader in all things social and metaverse. The announcements made by industry leaders in this space about the future of social and the metaverse always fail to mention how they intend to pay the creators and communities that will build the future of the metaverse. The creative community is built into the fabric of our companies and its leadership.”

Co-Founder of Infinite Reality Elliott Jobe says, “We’re thrilled to be coming together at such a pivotal moment in time - where creators can finally be at the helm of their own economic destiny. Impossible to imagine the kinds of creativity, experiences, and connections creators will unlock using this technology. Perhaps within the prospect of an open metaverse, we discover we are not alone after all.”

Rodric David, CEO of Thunder Studios says, “John, Elliott, and I share a common belief that the metaverse should be open for all creators to collaborate on unique content opportunities that deliver immersive, interactive, and engaging fan experiences. The metaverse will propel the future of the Creator Economy, and we will empower creators with a broad suite of metaverse tools to support their success. We strive to end the exploitation of creators by large technology platforms by partnering with creators, providing them resources to produce their craft, and including them in the broad range of income opportunities the metaverse will generate.”

Display Social is a venture-backed, social commerce media platform that takes the networked social experience to the next level with one simple commitment: Display believes creators should be financially rewarded for the quality content they produce. With Display’s commerce feature, creators can tag items in their post, allowing users to purchase at the point of discovery, while the creator gets paid for inspiring that transaction. When advertisers pay Display, creators earn a 50% payout on ad revenue generated from their content, and non-profit users receive a 100% payout rate on Support ads. Every day, Display members earn real money based on ad revenue and affiliate commissions. With Display, your posts promise not only purpose … but also profit.

Thunder is a fully integrated entertainment services company, led by Founder and CEO Rodric David, focused on gaming and esports, music, user-generated live content, virtual production, and the metaverse. The company’s motto is “We Empower Creators.” Thunder operates from its 150,000 square foot production studio in Los Angeles and provides integrated production and broadcast services to the entertainment industry. Thunder is the lead investor in Infinite Reality and has been collaboratively developing metaverse technologies and virtual production tools to empower user-generated live content broadcast into and from the metaverse.

Infinite Reality (iR) is the gateway to the metaverse and creator economy where creators and consumers engage live with digital content through interactive first-person social experiences. Founded by entertainment technology pioneer Elliott Jobe and event and content creator Helix Wolfson, Infinite Reality’s mission is to support the creators, artists, innovators, and companies who will help build the metaverse with the tools they need to do so and empower anyone with a phone or computer to create their own unique piece of the metaverse.