Infinite Reality Acquires AI Firm Touchcast for $500 Million, Valuing Company at $15.5 Billion

Fresh Off Napster Buy, Infinite Reality to Acquire AI Startup for $500 Million

Infinite Reality, a tech company working on digital experiences and extended reality, has agreed to acquire AI firm Touchcast Inc. for $500 million in cash and stock, in a deal that values Infinite Reality at $15.5 billion. The acquisition comes just weeks after the company said it would buy iconic 2000s music brand Napster. With the $207 million Napster deal, Infinite Reality said it aimed to create a new kind of music platform, and give people more ways to interact with artists online. The acquisition is one of several by Infinite Reality as it aims to become a major player in AI and ecommerce.

Infinite Reality will acquire agentic AI firm Touchcast for $500M

Infinite Reality -- a fast-moving company focused on AI, immersive technology and digital media -- has agreed to acquire agentic AI firm Touchcast for $500 million in cash and stock. Infinite Reality has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Touchcast in a deal that comes just a few weeks after Infinite Reality acquired Napster for $207 million. And Infinite Reality said the transaction agreement values the company at $15.5 billion. Boca Raton, Florida-based Infinite Reality has been on an acquisition binge to assemble what used to be popularly known as the metaverse, a term coined by sci-fi author Neal Stephenson decades ago in his novel Snow Crash. But after Meta entered this market, a lot of people became skeptical and metaverse is kind of a dirty word. Using the phrase immersive technology instead, Infinite Reality has been acquiring companies to build the metaverse. Amish Shah, Infinite Reality's chief business officer, acknowledged in an interview with GamesBeat that the company no longer refers to itself as a metaverse company. There was too much hype associated with the word, which was coined by Neal Stephenson in Snow Crash, a 1992 sci-fi novel. "The difference here is we've been around with seasoned entrepreneurs building towards what's happening today," said Shah. "A lot of others are just coming out of blue, raising valuations where you don't know what their vision is, what their product is, what their team is. I think the difference here is there is a story behind us. Our CEO Jon (Acunto) is a five-time entrepreneur. I've had exits. And Edo (Segal) is a five-time exit entrepreneur. It's a great question and we get it all the time." "All three of us, unfortunately, are in our 50s. We're not in our 20s. We've made a lot of mistakes, we've learned a lot," Shah said. "We've become aligned, and this is why I think the story is so compelling, and the AI market is just insane right now. There's no right answer, but we didn't go down a traditional path. Valuations are what investors believe. We have done due diligence. For eight months, we looked at the marketplace." He said the teams met at the Web Summit last year and then started talking. And They figured out the deal in the subsequent months. Edo Segal, Touchcast founder and CEO, said in an interview that this is the fifth company he has sold in the AI space, and he said Touchcast's powerful agentic AI platform, known as Mentorverse, generates an infinite universe of specialized AI mentors who engage in natural and face-to-face video conversations. He showed me a demo of the tech, which has some time delays but enables pretty good human avatars who can hold conversations with players or users, depending on the app that they are offering help for. And, unlike traditional chatbots or static web experiences, Touchcast can consistent personalities with deep domain expertise to deliver genuinely helpful guidance through natural, multimodal interactions. The integration of Touchcast's technology across Infinite Reality's portfolio of products and services will enable iR customers to tap AI agents for a number of tasks that drive user engagement, customer support, and sales. For example, within Napster (recently acquired by iR), Touchcast tech will enable subscribers to easily generate immersive social listening spaces and leverage knowledgeable AI agents for music playlisting, community management, and music trivia, among other engaging features. For iR Enterprise and iR Studio customers, the Touchcast toolkit empowers Fortune 500 brands, small and medium-size companies, and creators with knowledgeable, trained, and on-brand AI agents designed to power global and scalable sales and customer service functions. A number of people might blink their eyes or shake their heads when they learn that Infinite Reality, a company with 300 or so employees, is worth $15.5 billion. I asked Shah how the company can convince people that its efforts are real. When the company raised $3 billion at a valuation of $12.5 billion in January, some tech experts were skeptical as Infinite Reality did not reveal the investor that made it possible. Shah noted that the investor was not seeking fame, but he said it would likely become evident as more announcements happen. Infinite Reality has, however, revealed its roster of other investors and shareholders including RSE Ventures, Liberty Media, Lux Capital, Lerer Hippeau, Ruttenberg Gordon Investments, Gross Labs Investments, Sterling Select (Sterling Equities), MGM, T-Mobile Ventures, Courtside VC, Exor, Terracap, Live Nation, Harvard Investment Group, as well as notable individuals such as Producer/DJ Steve Aoki, Grammy Award-winning band Imagine Dragons, and NBA All Star Rudy Gobert. The deals included acquisitions of Obsess, Stakes, Drone Racing, Ethereal and Action Face. It also bought a majority stake in Super League Gaming. Back in January, Infinite Reality said it raised $3 billion at a valuation of $12.25 billion. And in 2024, the company raised $350 million and bought Landvault. Touchcast, built on OpenAI and delivered on Microsoft Azure via a $50 million strategic partnership, provides a suite of groundbreaking AI delivery systems that dramatically improve response times for AI interaction. For businesses, this means the ability to deliver seamless, human-like experiences while boosting efficiency and reducing costs -- a vital edge in today's competitive digital landscape. Touchcast's platform is turning what once required entire teams and years of work into one-click solutions with multiple products ranging from AI mentors to transforming websites into interactive AI experiences, and more. Touchcast's enterprise-grade technology is SOC2 compliant with global scalability. The company holds 27 patents related to AI and interactive video technology, including systems for coordinated presentations, video conferencing enhancements, and intelligent virtual assistant systems. Touchcast's AI mentors interact like humans, not chatbots, work together as a team of specialized agents to build on each other's expertise and solve complex challenges, and deliver immediate ROI by elevating the online experience. Led by seasoned entrepreneurs and trusted by top global enterprises across automotive, home improvement, management consulting, and education categories, Touchcast is transforming how businesses adopt AI by making these advanced capabilities accessible to anyone, regardless of technical expertise. "Agentic AI is a big part of how consumers and businesses will interact with the web in the future," said John Acunto, CEO of Infinite Reality, in a statement. "The Touchcast technology has immediate applications across our entire business portfolio and will no doubt provide our customers with instant benefits - whether those customers are Napster subscribers and artists, global Fortune 500 brands, or small businesses. What Edo Segal and his team have developed at Touchcast will no doubt accelerate Infinite Reality's mission to lead a transition to a more immersive, personalized and conversational web." Segal is a serial entrepreneur and AI pioneer who has spent over two decades building companies at the intersection of artificial intelligence and human communication. Segal is leading breakthrough innovations in how people access and share expertise through AI, fundamentally reimagining human-AI collaboration. Prior to Touchcast, he founded and successfully sold multiple companies including Relegence (acquired by AOL), Brainboost (acquired by Answers.com), and Screencaster (acquired by Livestream), consistently positioning himself at the forefront of technological transformation. "Joining forces with Infinite Reality represents the ideal next chapter for Touchcast," said Segal. "From day one, our mission has been to humanize AI -- moving beyond chatbots to create intelligent, emotionally resonant experiences that feel intuitive and alive. iR not only shares that belief and has the platform to bring our technology to scale across industries and audiences, but together we can empower a new generation of creators and businesses to deliver expertise, storytelling, and service in ways that were unimaginable until now." "With LLMs, with this big breakthrough, it facilitates so many different things for us," said Segal. "We're entering the state where the world models really allow us to create what used to require a tremendous amount of effort and time, which is really where these projects went to die. It now does it automatically." He said the company can take any website, any commerce website, and automatically create an entire store that's a full 3D experience, literally with one click. He did a demo of his Mentorverse doing just that, using agentic AI to create a new website for VentureBeat in just a quick minute or so. It had its own agent, a human-like greeter, and then displayed stories on the site in 3D. "Agentic AI automatically created what you're seeing on the screen, doing what used to take a year of work and cost a million dollars to do," Segal said. "Now this is a click away and it could happen for any website." I had him switch to GamesBeat and it worked fine. There were some glitches, but it all happened in a minute or so. He also showed a more polished demo of a website for Imperial College, where professors had their own virtual twins who could talk with students 24/7. Touchcast has raised $60 million to date, and one of its biggest customers was Accenture. A year ago, it launched a strategic deal with Microsoft. "Joining with IR is the next big chapter at a time where AI is exploding," said Segal. "We feel like we have a few years headstart." Touchcast itself has 70 employees. "The acquisition of Touchcast marks our largest transaction thus far, and represents a perfect continuation of our strategic growth trajectory, building on the momentum from the iconic Napster acquisition and recent $3 billion funding round," said Shah. "The addition of Touchcast's agentic AI technology serves as a powerful building block for our platform as we look to provide our customers with the tools they need to succeed in the modern AI-powered era."

Metaverse platform Infinite Reality expands AI capabilities with $500M Touchcast acquisition - SiliconANGLE

Metaverse platform Infinite Reality expands AI capabilities with $500M Touchcast acquisition Infinite Reality Inc., a metaverse company that builds and powers virtual reality immersive digital media experiences for brands and creators, said today it agreed to acquire agentic artificial intelligence firm Touchcast Inc. for $500 million in cash and stock. The acquisition happened shortly after the company acquired Napster for $207 million in March. Napster is the digital music company best known for gaining popularity with peer-to-peer file sharing in the 1990s. In 2024, IR acquired extended reality company Zappar Ltd. for $45 million, adding the company's all-in-one extended reality tools to its platform, and acquired Landvault for $350 million, a technology studio that specializes in building immersive environments for companies and governments. IR said the transaction agreement with Touchcast will bring its valuation to $15.5 billion. As a company, Infinite Reality provides "metaverse" services, a term coined by Neal Stephenson that refers to 3D immersive, interactive digital worlds and environments where people can interact, socialize and work. These include virtual reality and augmented reality technologies that allow businesses and creators to build branded immersive content, enabling users to experience products and entertainment by moving through them as they would in real life. Through the acquisition of Touchcast, IR said it will be incorporating AI capabilities into all of its product offerings. As an AI firm, Touchcast provides a wide variety of services, with AI-powered lifelike video avatars being a key offering. These avatars go beyond traditional chatbots and can act and react like human beings, answer questions, and provide intelligent assistance. Built on OpenAI and delivered on Microsoft Azure through a $50 million strategic partnership, Touchcast holds 27 patents on AI and interactive video technology, including systems for coordinated presentations, video conferencing enhancements, and AI assistants. "Joining forces with Infinite Reality represents the ideal next chapter for Touchcast," said Edo Segal, chief executive and founder of Touchcast. "From day one, our mission has been to humanize AI -- moving beyond chatbots to create intelligent, emotionally resonant experiences that feel intuitive and alive." Infinite Reality said integrating Touchcast's AI agents could fuel a revolution for its customers through numerous metaverse services and products. For example, in Napster AI agents will enable subscribers to generate immersive social listening spaces for music playlisting, community engagement and music trivia. "Agentic AI is a big part of how consumers and businesses will interact with the web in the future," said John Acunto, CEO and founder of Infinite Reality. "The Touchcast technology has immediate applications across our entire business portfolio and will no doubt provide our customers with instant benefits -- whether those customers are Napster subscribers and artists, global Fortune 500 brands, or small businesses." The combination of Touchcast's agentic AI capabilities could enhance Infinite Reality's solutions in several ways. These include AI-powered sales assistants with 3D avatars capable of having lifelike conversations, personalized experiences in immersive environments driven by AI, and improved interactivity powered by interactive elements. For developers, AI could augment the generation of 3D models, textures, and other assets, speeding up the development and creation of virtual worlds for brands and creators.

Infinite Reality To Acquire Agentic AI Company Touchcast For $500M In A Deal That Values Infinite Reality At $15.5B

Enter your email to get Benzinga's ultimate morning update: The PreMarket Activity Newsletter BOCA RATON, Fla., April 16, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Infinite Reality™ (iR), an innovation company powering the next generation of digital media and ecommerce through extended reality (XR), artificial intelligence (AI), and other immersive technologies, announced today the company has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Touchcast, a pioneering agentic AI company for $500 million in a combination of cash and stock. The acquisition is Infinite Reality's largest yet, and the transaction agreement values the company at $15.5 billion. Touchcast's powerful agentic AI platform, known as Mentorverse, generates an infinite universe of specialized AI mentors who engage in natural, face-to-face video conversations and, unlike traditional chatbots or static web experiences, combine consistent personalities with deep domain expertise to deliver genuinely helpful guidance through natural, multimodal interactions. The integration of Touchcast's technology across Infinite Reality's portfolio of products and services will enable iR customers to tap AI agents for a number of tasks that drive user engagement, customer support, and sales. For example, within Napster (recently acquired by iR), Touchcast tech will enable subscribers to easily generate immersive social listening spaces and leverage knowledgeable AI agents for music playlisting, community management, and music trivia, among other engaging features. For iR Enterprise and iR Studio customers, the Touchcast toolkit empowers Fortune 500 brands, SMEs, and creators with knowledgeable, trained, and on-brand AI agents designed to power global and scalable sales and customer service functions. Touchcast, built on OpenAI and delivered on Microsoft Azure via a $50 million strategic partnership, provides a suite of groundbreaking AI delivery systems that dramatically improve response times for AI interaction. For businesses, this means the ability to deliver seamless, human-like experiences while boosting efficiency and reducing costs -- a vital edge in today's competitive digital landscape. Touchcast's platform is turning what once required entire teams and years of work into one-click solutions with multiple products ranging from AI mentors to transforming websites into interactive AI experiences, and more. Touchcast's enterprise-grade technology is SOC2 compliant with global scalability. The company holds 27 patents related to AI and interactive video technology, including systems for coordinated presentations, video conferencing enhancements, and intelligent virtual assistant systems. Touchcast's AI mentors interact like humans, not chatbots, work together as a team of specialized agents to build on each other's expertise and solve complex challenges, and deliver immediate ROI by elevating the online experience. Led by seasoned entrepreneurs and trusted by top global enterprises across automotive, home improvement, management consulting, and education categories, Touchcast is transforming how businesses adopt AI by making these advanced capabilities accessible to anyone, regardless of technical expertise. "Agentic AI is a big part of how consumers and businesses will interact with the web in the future," said John Acunto, CEO and Founder of Infinite Reality. "The Touchcast technology has immediate applications across our entire business portfolio and will no doubt provide our customers with instant benefits - whether those customers are Napster subscribers and artists, global Fortune 500 brands, or small businesses. What Edo Segal and his team have developed at Touchcast will no doubt accelerate Infinite Reality's mission to lead a transition to a more immersive, personalized and conversational web." Edo Segal, CEO and Founder of Touchcast, is a serial entrepreneur and AI pioneer who has spent over two decades building companies at the intersection of artificial intelligence and human communication. Segal is leading breakthrough innovations in how people access and share expertise through AI, fundamentally reimagining human-AI collaboration. Prior to Touchcast, he founded and successfully sold multiple companies including Relegence (acquired by AOL), Brainboost (acquired by Answers.com), and Screencaster (acquired by Livestream), consistently positioning himself at the forefront of technological transformation. "Joining forces with Infinite Reality represents the ideal next chapter for Touchcast," said Edo Segal, CEO and Founder of Touchcast. "From day one, our mission has been to humanize AI -- moving beyond chatbots to create intelligent, emotionally resonant experiences that feel intuitive and alive. iR not only shares that belief and has the platform to bring our technology to scale across industries and audiences, but together we can empower a new generation of creators and businesses to deliver expertise, storytelling, and service in ways that were unimaginable until now." "The acquisition of Touchcast marks our largest transaction thus far, and represents a perfect continuation of our strategic growth trajectory, building on the momentum from the iconic Napster acquisition and recent $3 billion funding round," said Amish Shah, Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer, Infinite Reality. "The addition of Touchcast's agentic AI technology serves as a powerful building block for our platform as we look to provide our customers with the tools they need to succeed in the modern AI-powered era." About Infinite Reality Infinite Reality (iR)™ is an innovation company powering the next generation of digital media and e-commerce through spatial computing, artificial intelligence (AI), and other immersive technologies. iR's suite of cutting-edge software, production, marketing services, and other capabilities empower brands and creators to craft inventive digital experiences that uplevel audience engagement, data ownership, monetization, and brand health metrics. The company is backed by an impressive roster of investors and shareholders including RSE Ventures, Liberty Media, Lux Capital, Lerer Hippeau, Ruttenberg Gordon Investments, Gross Labs Investments, Sterling Select (Sterling Equities), MGM, T-Mobile Ventures, Courtside VC, Exor, Terracap, Live Nation, Harvard Investment Group, as well as notable individuals such as Producer/DJ Steve Aoki, Grammy Award-winning band Imagine Dragons, and NBA All Star Rudy Gobert. For more information, visit theinfinitereality.com. About Touchcast Touchcast is revolutionizing how organizations harness their collective intelligence, providing unparalleled tools for capturing, sharing, and evolving organizational knowledge through agentic AI. Built on Microsoft Azure, Touchcast's enterprise-grade platform is trusted by leading organizations including Microsoft, HSBC, Pfizer and Imperial Business School. Touchcast holds 27 patents and has been recognized as a ClimaTech Great Global Innovation Challenge Winner for its cognitive caching technology and ability to reduce AI energy consumption by up to 50% while accelerating response times by up to 100x, and is an Accenture V360 Customer Award Winner for its Foresight platform, recognizing its exceptional performance in transforming Accenture's thought leadership capabilities and customer communications. Infinite Reality press@theinfinitereality.com A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/419fcb1a-e863-4ff4-8d78-a5f66f7c77fc Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

Napster Owner Infinite Reality Valued at $15 Billion After Acquiring Touchcast | PYMNTS.com

Metaverse company Infinite Reality has been valued at $15.5 billion after purchasing AI firm Touchcast, the company announced Wednesday (April 16). In purchasing Touchcast, Infinite Reality gets access to products that include artificial intelligence (AI) agent offerings. "Agentic AI is a big part of how consumers and businesses will interact with the web in the future," Infinite Reality CEO and founder John Acunto said in the announcement. The $500 million deal comes weeks after Infinite Reality announced plans to purchase music brand Napster, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday. That acquisition is one of several the company is making, the report added, as Infinite Reality tries to establish itself as a key player in the AI and eCommerce spaces. Touchcast's technology can convincingly duplicate someone's speech, so that -- to use Bloomberg's example -- a company could create a digital doppelganger of their CEO for investor pitches. Touchcast Co-founder and CEO Edo Segal told Bloomberg that AI would give Infinite Reality users access to an "infinite universe of agents that occupy different personas and different professions," essentially giving people access to a stable of AI employees. The Touchcast acquisition is Infinite Reality's third purchase this year and its biggest to date, the report said. The company in January announced a $3 billion investment from an unidentified backer whose portfolio focuses on global technology and real estate. In other artificial intelligence news, PYMNTS wrote Wednesday about the technology's use in amplifying the potential of data -- particularly transaction and payments data -- for retailers. "Legacy silos and fragmented tech stacks have stifled innovation in retail. Yet GenAI's arrival has intensified the urgency for cohesive data strategies," that report said. "Early adopters are moving quickly to unify disparate data sources, from point of sale (POS) and customer relationship management (CRM) to inventory, social and customer sentiment, and layer governance and accessibility frameworks on top." According to research from "GenAI Applications in Retail Transaction Analysis: Industry Trends and Insights," a collaboration between PYMNTS Intelligence and Fiserv, more than 90% of surveyed retailers, each of generating at least $500 million in yearly revenue, have integrated GenAI into their transaction data workflows. "There's a widening gap between retailers who are AI-enabled and those who are still manually pulling reports from six different systems," PYMNTS wrote. "It's not just about speed. It's about resilience, adaptability and long-term relevance." But in spite of growing enthusiasm, the research spotlights an obvious gap between ambition and execution. Under one-third of three retailers rate their data analytics capabilities as "high," and just 22% felt strong confidence in cross-functional data sharing and collaboration.