Tommaso Di Bartolo wrote the book on the metaverse. Literally. He is the author of Navigating the Metaverse and a UC Berkeley faculty member [Forbes]. Now he is trying to build one that consumers actually use, and he is wiring crypto rewards into the floor of it.
His company, Phygtl, Inc., is a Silicon Valley startup founded in 2022 that describes itself as a Web3 augmented-reality metaverse for consumer engagement, socialization, and shopping [Crunchbase]. The pitch: point your phone at the world, see a digital layer on top of it, interact with brands and other users inside that layer, and earn on-chain rewards for the time you spend there. The Org describes the underlying product as a spatial computing platform that merges physical and digital worlds for co-creation [The Org].
Phygtl is taking a swing at it from the pre-seed stage with a team of 11 to 50 people [Wellfound].
The bet
Phygtl's wedge is the overlap of augmented reality, blockchain-based rewards, and shopping. Most AR consumer apps to date have been filters or games. Most Web3 consumer apps have been wallets or marketplaces. Phygtl is trying to collapse the two into a single loop where the act of looking at, sharing, or buying something in the physical world is also the act of earning inside a digital economy [Crunchbase].
The target user is a B2C consumer. Di Bartolo has argued publicly that the metaverse should be understood as an extension of real life that empowers individuals and provides access to the financial system [SustainDAO Podcast].
Why it could be big
The macro tailwind is real. Crypto-adjacent hiring grew 395% in the run-up to 2022, according to Business Insider [Business Insider, 2022], and the spatial computing category has been re-energized by Apple's Vision Pro and Meta's continued Quest investment.
Di Bartolo himself sits inside the network that tends to back these bets. He is a Forbes Business Council member [Forbes] and an advisor to Silicon Valley accelerators including Google Launchpad, Draper University, and The Alchemist, with guest lecturing at Stanford on top of his Berkeley faculty role [Speakerpedia].
The team and traction
Di Bartolo is Co-Founder and CEO [Crunchbase]. He is a serial entrepreneur with two prior exits and is the co-author of The Metaverse Economy in addition to Navigating the Metaverse [Forbes][Slideshare]. Originally from Sicily, he relocated to Silicon Valley and has built a public profile as a keynote speaker on the category [BusinessABC][Yahoo Finance]. He also holds board or advisor seats at HandsOn.TV, LoadTap, and txtsmarter [Champions Speakers].
The company reports a headcount of 11 to 50 [Wellfound] and is actively hiring, with a User Research Intern role open for the first half of 2026 [LinkedIn].
| Phygtl at a glance | Detail |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2022 [Crunchbase] |
| Headquarters | Silicon Valley [Wellfound] |
| Stage | Pre-Seed |
| Headcount | 11 to 50 [Wellfound] |
| Business model | B2C [Crunchbase] |
| Open roles | User Research Intern, H1 2026 [LinkedIn] |
The honest counterfactual
What bears will say: consumer Web3 has been a graveyard for capital, and AR-native shopping behavior has not yet shown up at scale. A Reddit thread from prospective interns also flagged friction in Phygtl's recruiting funnel, including unanswered outreach and broken application links [Reddit].
What bulls will answer: Phygtl is choosing to build the consumer loop now, while spatial hardware is finally in market and while the on-chain rewards infrastructure has matured. Di Bartolo's network across Google Launchpad, Draper University, and The Alchemist [Speakerpedia] gives the company a credible path to brand partners and to a seed round.
What to watch
Three things over the next twelve months. First, a priced funding round: Phygtl has no disclosed institutional backers in the public databases yet [Crunchbase][PitchBook]. Second, a flagship brand partner. Third, any public usage metric, whether that is downloads, monthly actives, or rewards distributed.