South Korean telecommunications giant SK Telecom said Wednesday it has agreed to buy a stake in Morph Interactive, a Seoul-based three-dimensional motion graphics company, in a move to bolster a strategic partnership for accelerating its metaverse push.

The deal terms, such as acquisition cost and the amount of Morph Interactive’s stake, was undisclosed upon the consent of the two companies.

Morph Interactive has been dedicated to real-time 3D visual effects on Unity’s game engine, as well as technologies for virtual reality and augmented reality. It has worked with Korean telecom firms SK Telecom and KT.

SK Telecom said the new strategic investment will accelerate the speed of advancing ifland, a fledgling metaverse platform where users and clients can make digital interactions in a virtual world.

By the end of 2022, ifland aims to adopt gamification, issue its own digital asset for crypto economy, and launch a shop that allows users to custom design outfits for their avatars.

Morph Interactive has been a longtime partner and played a critical role in developing ifland metaverse platform at its early stage, SK Telecom added.

The strategic investment will lay a cornerstone for “providing ifland users with more fun factors,” Yang Maeng-seok, head of SK Telecom‘s metaverse business, said in a statement.

Launched in July 2021, ifland is considered one of the two major metaverse platforms in Korea, along with Naver’s Zepeto. The global version of ifland was unveiled in the Mobile World Congress 2022 in Barcelona in March.

(consnow@heraldcorp.com)