Facebook’s parent company is behind the $60 million acquisition of the trademark assets of Meta name rights

In October, Facebook changed its corporate name to ‘Meta’ to reflect its foray into the metaverse. In addition, CEO Mark Zuckerberg also revealed that the new company plans to spend $10 billion to transition from its much-criticized social network and related family of apps and into what Zuckerberg describes as an “embodied internet.”

Since then, Meta has gone to the airwaves and social media to promote the company’s new next-generation metaverse platform. In a statement, Zuckerberg wrote: “Our hope is that within the next decade, the metaverse will reach a billion people, host hundreds of billions of dollars of digital commerce, and support jobs for millions of creators and developers.”

As part of its effort to lead the metaverse space, Meta acquired Meta name rights from a small U.S. bank on Monday. Meta Platforms Inc, the parent company and the owner of social media network Facebook, acquired the trademark assets of U.S. regional bank Meta Financial Group for $60 million, according to an exclusive report from Reuter, citing spokespeople for the companies.

The deal further shows that Meta is willing to do everything to capture the metaverse space and further cement itself as the leader before other companies get into the space. In an SEC regulatory filing on Monday, Meta Financial had said that a Delaware company called Beige Key LLC agreed to acquire the worldwide rights to its company names for $60 million in cash. But it did not disclose who the owner of Beige Key was, Reuters reported.

However, a Meta Platforms spokesperson told Reuters saying “Beige Key is affiliated with us and we have acquired these trademark assets.” A MetaBank spokesperson also confirmed Meta Platforms’ involvement with Reuters.

Speaking at a virtual event to showcase Facebook’s technological bets of the future,  Zuckerberg said, “Today we are seen as a social media company, but in our DNA we are a company that builds technology to connect people, and the metaverse is the next frontier just like social networking was when we got started.”

Zuckerberg also said back in October that Meta would hire 10,000 people in Europe over the next five years to help create the metaverse. “This is a major area of investment for us and an important part of our strategy going forward,” Zuckerberg said in an earnings call with investors.