Google Ventures (GV) announced that it had led a $12 million Series A investment round in SideQuest, a platform created to enable Meta Quest users to enjoy virtual reality (VR) content and experiences that aren’t yet available on the Meta Quest Store.

Since its launch, the SideQuest platform has gained tremendous popularity among users of Meta’s standalone Quest headsets, who utilize it to access titles that aren’t directly available through Meta’s own Quest store. Additionally, SideQuest has provided developers a proving ground, enabling them to validate their VR content and jumpstart their communities.

According to the company’s founders, the funding will allow SideQuest to carry out its plans to expand aggressively and maybe double or triple its personnel.

The difficulty they encountered in releasing software and tools for the VR headsets and hardware of the time led co-founders Shane and Orla Harris to create SideQuest in 2019.

In response to a question on how SideQuest has managed to coexist peacefully with Meta’s own VR app and gaming ecosystem, including Meta’s “App Lab” platform for developers, Shane Harris said:

“Our relationship with Meta has been interesting; we’ve generally stayed out of each others’ way. SideQuest has a huge amount of value to their headset, but we have no plans to monetize on the Quest platform to not compete with them.”

Instead, SideQuest is considering various paths for monetizing its network of VR developers. It entails creating new developer tools and perhaps launching a publishing fund to support titles on their store that are popular.

According to a GV blog post, M.G. Siegler from GV will join the company’s board as part of the agreement.

Commenting on the funding announcement, Siegler said: “We feel the time is right, and the SideQuest team has the potential to be a leader in this [VR] sector that finally feels primed for prime time.”

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