Manish Maheshwari no longer CEO at Invact Metaversity; Tanay Pratap to take over

Ex-Twitter head Manish Maheshwari has left Invact Metaversity, the metaverse-based ed-tech firm he co-founded. Maheshwari announced that he was leaving on Twitter. He was the firm's chief executive officer. Tanay Pratap, the firm's other co-founder, will be taking over; differences between the two executives had emerged in the last few weeks.

It was not immediately clear what the terms of Maheshwari's departure were.

"I am moving out of Invact to first take a break for a few months and then pursue new opportunities," Maheshwari said in a Twitter thread. 

"The decision to part ways was not an easy one, but ultimately, [Maheshwari] and [the company's other co-founder] @tanaypratap had diverging visions for the company's long-term prospects.  Invact will continue and under leadership of Tanay will pursue its vision to make quality education accessible via Metaversity," the company said in a separate statement.

Invact had been built on the idea of creating educational courses on the metaverse, leveraging virtual reality technologies that have been touted by companies like Facebook parent Meta, but are yet to see any mainstream traction, leaving early movers facing a lot of uncertainty and risk on what a metaverse-based product is supposed to look like.

This uncertainty was at the heart of a falling-out between investors and the co-founders of Invact, which recently cancelled its very first 'metaMBA' course, refunding prospective students. The company also laid off several employees and gave itself a longer runway, but until now it was unclear whether Maheshwari would leave, or if the firm would shut down entirely.

As Entrackr had reported, one founder accused the other of impeding communication with investors about Invact's situation, in an email to smaller investors. It was unclear in light of this friction whether the issue would have an amicable conclusion. 

One of those early investors, Gergely Orosz, accused Maheshwari of holding Invact 'hostage' by refusing to leave, in a letter that was reported by the Economic Times on Friday.