The Metaverse saw a rise in popularity after Facebook re-named itself to ‘Meta Platforms’, and while gaming and VR are the primary use cases right now, Invesco says that this is only the first innings of the megatrend and investing in metaverse is a multi-year opportunity.

“We believe the Metaverse represents a major economic opportunity for a wide range of innovative companies that can help facilitate, create, or benefit from the growth of immersive virtual worlds,” writes Tony Roberts, Fund Manager, Invesco.

In a recently published whitepaper, the investment manager says there is a big opportunity as Metaverse is built to reach its full potential. Invesco talks about the use cases and gives some examples such as Microsoft’s Mesh for Teams, Meta Platforms’ Horizon Workroom and Accenture’s Nth floor. The asset manager also talks about some of the industrial use cases such as the ability to create a digital twin which is helping manufacturers across industries.

On the other hand, some of the more leisurely use cases include online gaming and virtual events, among other things.

“While we’re already able to see extraordinary use cases for the Metaverse, we’re only in the early innings of its development. We believe this is a multi-year investment theme – one that relies on building the infrastructure needed for the Metaverse to reach its true potential,” as per James McDermottroe, Fund Manager at Invesco.

Moreover, the asset management firm talks about the different opportunities for investing in metaverse as the development quickens. Invesco says that the most significant opportunities lie in — compute, hardware, platforms and networks.

It further explains how to demarcate technology stocks and metaverse stocks, and gives a framework for what the company needs to do for it to be considered a metaverse firm.

“At this early stage, we’d suggest that investors don’t focus on trying to predict the ‘winners’ now in a theme that could span decades. Rather, we’d look for diversified exposure across sub-sectors in established companies with expertise and an execution track record to benefit from the Metaverse,” concludes Invesco.

Download the full whitepaper here.