Metaverse VP Sharma to Head Stripe's Revenue

A vice president of Meta’s virtual reality (VR) social platform Horizon Worlds is now over at Stripe working with a new product team.

Vivek Sharma started as Stripe’s new head of revenue and financial management this week and is collaborating with a new team developing products aimed at helping businesses manage, track and analyze their revenue, according to his LinkedIn post on Friday (Oct. 14).

“There’s been huge creativity in online business models over the last decade. Retailers are becoming marketplaces and platforms, marketplaces are becoming retailers, fintech and the creator economy are everywhere,” Sharma said.

“But financial systems haven’t kept up. Businesses are still constrained by the basics: how do we bill our users and/or support new billing models? How do we track all of these financial assets and obligations sloshing around in the cloud? And how do we do this compliantly in markets around the world?”

Sharma stepped down in August, replaced by Vishal Shah, PYMNTS reported at the time. Sharma was part of a team developing the virtual experience inside the metaverse accessible by users through Meta’s VR devices.

His exit followed criticism over the graphics quality of Horizon Worlds after CEO Mark Zuckerberg released an in-world avatar of himself that had no legs and was called dated in its appearance and overall quality.

At Stripe, Sharma moves away from the problems of the metaverse and instead takes on revenue and financial management for businesses in the regular universe.

“We’re helping businesses earn more money in more ways — vital in the current slowdown — and make accounting, tax and analytics a ton easier so they can manage that revenue for a lot less effort,” Sharma said.

“Stripe powers millions of businesses. … Getting this right could be a big driver of economic opportunity for businesses around the world,” he added.