NEW YORK, June 30, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Roundhill Investments ("Roundhill"), a registered investment advisor and ETF sponsor focused on developing innovative financial products, today announced the launch of the Roundhill Ball Metaverse ETF ("META ETF"). The META ETF is the first exchange traded product globally to provide investors with exposure to the rapidly-growing market of the Metaverse. The Metaverse is broadly understood as a successor-state to today's mobile Internet, but which will involve countless interoperable and persistent virtual worlds, be richly integrated into the physical world as well, thereby creating a new medium and economy for work, leisure, and innovation.
The Roundhill Ball Metaverse ETF ("META ETF") is designed to offer investors exposure to the metaverse by tracking, before fees and expenses, the performance of the Ball Metaverse Index ("BALLMETA Index"). The Index is managed by Ball Metaverse Research Partners, a newly-formed indexing and research firm led by Matthew Ball, a seasoned investor, advisor, and researcher of the Metaverse.
"We consider the emergence of the Metaverse to be as transformative and valuable as the emergence of mobile Internet and the fixed-line Internet that preceded it. It likely will touch every industry and profession, enlarging and/or disrupting today's leaders, and leading to countless new companies and technologies," said Matthew Ball.
The Index has been created to provide investors with an efficient and comprehensive way to invest across all of the major categories and areas of the Metaverse, and proportional to their likely share of revenues. Specifically, the Index was developed and will be maintained by an Expert Council whose backgrounds and specialized knowledge reflects the range of relevant sectors. In addition to Matthew Ball, the Council includes:
- Jerry Heinz, VP of Engineering cybersecurity start-up ActZero and former Head of Enterprise Cloud Services at Nvidia, VP Engineering at Tinder, and Senior Manager at Amazon Web Services, where he launched the company's low-latency streaming, app and game virtualization platform;
- Jacob Navok, Co-Founder and CEO of Genvid Technologies, an interactive streaming technology firm, and previously lead Square Enix cloud gaming subsidiary Shinra Technologies, and ran business development for Square Enix Holdings;
- Jesse Walden, Managing Partner of Variant Fund, and former General Partner of Andreessen Horowitz's crypto fund and founder of Mediachain Labs, a blockchain-based rights platform that was acquired by Spotify; and
- Jonathan Glick, former SVP of Product & Technology at The New York Times Electronic Media Company and Director of Research at GLG, the global expert network.
Effective June 29th 2021, the BALLMETA Index also added two new members to its Expert Council, who will advise on all subsequent methodological changes and rebalancing, beginning in Q3 2021. These new experts are:
- Anna Sweet, CEO of Bad Robot Games, former Head of Content & Developer Strategy at Facebook's Oculus, and Senior Business Development Manager at Valve, where she led the growth of Steam and several key hardware initiatives
- Imran Sarwar, former Director of Design and Co-Producer of Grand Theft Auto V, Grand Theft Auto Online, Red Dead Redemption 2, Red Dead Redemption Online. Grand Theft Auto V was the best-selling title of the seventh and eighth generation of consoles, while Red Dead Redemption 2 was the best-selling title released for the eighth console generation
META holdings include GPU companies, like NVIDIA(7.92% weight), virtual platform providers, like Tencent(5.90% weight) and Roblox(5.13% weight), cloud computing services, like Fastly(3.92% weight), and gaming engines like Unity(3.60% weight).
"We are very excited to work with Matt and his team to offer META, a truly one-of-a-kind ETF that provides investors exposure to a basket of 50 companies that we believe are collectively positioned to drive the future of the internet. Without even including relevant compute, networking and payments companies, Bloomberg Intelligence recently estimated the Metaverse's market size at $800 billion, highlighting the immense opportunity at hand." - Will Hershey, CEO and co-founder at Roundhill Investments.
For more information on META ETF and a full list of holdings please visit -> https://www.roundhillinvestments.com/etf/meta/
About Roundhill Investments:
Roundhill Investments is a registered investment adviser focused on developing innovative financial products designed to offer exposure to investment themes that appeal to the next generation of investors. To learn more about the company, please visit roundhillinvestments.com.
About Ball Metaverse Research Partners:
Ball Metaverse Research is a financial and market research collective focused on the ongoing transition of global telecommunications, commerce and social engagement to the successor platform of the current Internet, known popularly as the 'Metaverse.' In addition to managing the Metaverse Index, Ball Metaverse Research publishes essays and studies on the future of the Internet, entertainment, gaming and social media, as well as convenes and participates in industry settings to promote standards and dialogue between important media and technology entrepreneurs, inventors, activists and enterprises.
Disclosures:
Investors should consider the investment objectives, risk, charges, and expenses carefully before investing. For a prospectus or summary prospectus with this and other information about the META ETF please call 1-855-561-5728 or visit the website https://www.roundhillinvestments.com/etf/meta/. Read the prospectus and summary prospectus carefully before investing.
Investing involves risk, including possible loss of principal. Esports gaming companies face intense competition, both domestically and internationally, may have products that face rapid obsolescence, and are heavily dependent on the protection of patent and intellectual property rights. Such factors may adversely affect the profitability and value of video gaming companies. Investments made in small and mid-capitalization companies may be more volatile and less liquid due to limited resources or product lines and more sensitive to economic factors. Fund investments will be concentrated in an industry or group of industries, and the value of Fund shares may be more risky and fall more than diversified funds. Foreign investing involves social and political instability, market illiquidity, exchange-rate fluctuation, high volatility and limited regulation risks. Emerging markets involve different and greater risks, as they are smaller, less liquid and more volatile than more developed countries. Depository Receipts involve risks similar to those associated investments in foreign securities but may not provide a return that corresponds precisely with that of the underlying shares. As an ETF, the fund may trade at a premium or discount to NAV. Shares of any ETF are bought and sold at market price (not NAV) and are not individually redeemed from the Fund. Due to the costs of buying or selling Shares, including brokerage commissions imposed by brokers and bid/ask spreads, frequent trading of Shares may significantly reduce investment results and an investment in Shares may not be advisable for investors who anticipate regularly making small investments. The Fund may invest in securities issued in initial public offerings. The market value of IPO shares will fluctuate considerably due to factors such as the absence of a prior public market, unseasoned trading, the small number of shares available for trading and limited information about the issuer. The purchase of IPO shares may involve high transaction costs. IPO shares are subject to market risk and liquidity risk. The Fund is a recently organized investment company with no operating history. The Fund invests in equity securities of SPACs, which raise assets to seek potential acquisition opportunities. Please see the prospectus for details of these and other risks.
Roundhill Financial Inc. serves as the investment advisor. The Funds are distributed by Foreside Fund Services, LLC which is not affiliated with Roundhill Financial Inc., U.S. Bank, or any of their affiliates.
View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/roundhill-investments-and-matthew-ball-launch-metaverse-etf-nysemeta-301322633.html
SOURCE Roundhill Investments
