Earlier this week NVIDIA held its annual GPU Technology Conference (GTC) 2017 with CEO Jen-Hsun Huang giving a keynote address on the third and final day. As part of the event the company held the second VR Content Showcase competition, the winner of which has just been announced as Los Angeles-based software developer Nurulize.
The showcase featured 120 entrants with pitches by 10 finalists. To actually participate, contestants needed to have raised no more than $5 million USD in funding and come from industries other than videogames. Nurulize took home the grand prize of $15,000 in cash plus three NVIDIA Quadro P6000 GPUs. Phillip Lunn, CEO and co-founder at Nurulize and Scott Metzger, Nurulize co-founder and chief creative officer both said they plan to distribute the cash to employees.
Each company had to impress a panel of judges in just five minutes, then they were grilled by Jeff Herbst, vice president of business development at NVIDIA, and Mark Rein, Epic Games’ vice president and co-founder.
Nurulize won with its GPU-accelerated Atom Wise software, aimed at simplifying and speeding the creation of virtual reality (VR) experiences. “It’s great to be selected and recognized for the work we’ve been doing,” said Phillip Lunn, CEO and co-founder at Nurulize on the Nvidia blog. “It’s a significant validation of the path we’re on and the technology we’re developing.”
The company’s competitorsincluded Cavrnus Inc., Doghead Simulations, FundamentalVR, Funique VR, Kalloc Studios, Opaque Media Group / Opaque Space, Sheencity, Theia Interactive and von waldkirch.
During GTC 2017 Nvidia made several VR related announcements, such as the launch of its VRWorks Audio software development kit (SDK) and VRWorks 360 Video SDK. While during Huang’s keynote address he revealed Project Holodeck, demonstrated alongside Swedish supercar manufacturer Koenigsegg.
VRFocus will continue its coverage of Nvidia, reporting back with all of its latest VR related news and updates.