Category: AR Industry

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Investors Poured a Record $2 Billion into VR/AR in 2017, But Early Stage Funding Slowed

In 2017, venture funding of VR/AR companies reached at least $1.9B, ending slightly above 2016. The total number of companies raising venture capital during 2017 outpaced 2016, but the average deal size declined sharply by 35%, according to Greenlight Insights’ annual year-end analysis of individual venture capital deals dating back to 2011.

Each year, Greenlight Insights compiles and qualifies data from private and public sources across North America, Europe, and Asia in order to assess the global venture funding landscape surrounding the VR/AR industry. In 2017, Greenlight Insights analyzed more than 300 individual deals, excluding outlier financings, such as StarVR ($5M in Q4), Unity ($400M in Q2), and Improbable ($502M in Q2).

“The aggregate increase in VR/AR venture deal activity is encouraging, but the reality is that 2017 was tough for most startups in the space,” said Clifton Dawson, CEO at VR/AR market research firm Greenlight Insights.

Similar to past years, the majority of deals in 2017 were early stage (Seed and Series A). The number of early stage deals in 2017 was up 27% YoY and 105 companies raised $2M or more from VCs. However, the average Seed and Series A deal size declined 9% and 17%, respectively.

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State of VR with the Venture Reality Fund & Why They're Continuing to Invest

It may look like virtual and augmented reality’s growth spurt is abating, but it’s important to remember that companies still raised triple the amount of dollars compared to just three years ago.

“A moderating deal size of early stage companies should be viewed as a positive indicator of a healthy funding environment and partly tracks with the larger venture investment picture of 2017,” said Natalie Yue, a Data Analyst with Greenlight Insights that worked on the analysis.

The complete year-end analysis is available as a supplement to the 2017 Virtual Reality Industry Report, which was co-published with Road to VR.

The post Investors Poured a Record $2 Billion into VR/AR in 2017, But Early Stage Funding Slowed appeared first on Road to VR.

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‘Pokémon Go’ Studio Niantic Completes $200M Funding Round

Niantic, the developer behind Pokémon Go and the upcoming Harry Potter AR game, announced they’ve taken on $200 million in their Series B investment round.

As reported by Tech Crunch, the Series B investment round was lead by Spark Capital in participation with Founders Fund, Meritech, Javelin Venture Capital, You & Mr. Jones and Chinese Internet technology company NetEase, Inc.

Born out of a startup founded within Google, Niantic is best known for their GPS-based mobile games Ingress and Pokémon Go, the later being an important IP for the company that helped land them their initial $30 million Series A led by Alsop Loui Partners, Google, Nintendo, The Pokémon Company, Cyan and Scott Banister and others.

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What 'Pokémon Go' Could Be Like if it Was Really Augmented Reality

Pokémon Go is branded heavily as an augmented reality game, but due to the lack of room-mapping, it doesn’t offer some of the hallmark features of what you might call a ‘true’ AR game, namely the basic ability to position 3D objects or characters at fixed points in the world and view them from any angle. While this may be true in the short term, genuine smartphone AR support is on the horizon thanks to both Apple’s ARkit and Google’s ARCore, software developer kits that allow developers to create the sort of ‘true’ AR experiences for flagship iOS and Android devices.

It’s still uncertain if the company’s upcoming Harry Potter game will essentially be a reskinned version of Pokémon Go, offering it’s faux-AR passthrough mode or truly delve into AR proper. We’ll be following along as it launches sometime in 2018.

The post ‘Pokémon Go’ Studio Niantic Completes $200M Funding Round appeared first on Road to VR.

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Amazon Brings Augmented Reality Product Previews to iOS App

‘Try it before you buy it’, the old adage goes. Well, an AR preview might not exactly be ‘trying it’, but Amazon’s new ‘AR View’ function aims to help you figure out if a crock-pot clashes with your marble counters, or if that chair can really fit in that corner, adding a little more depth to the online shopping experience than you’re used to.

Now, US-based iPhone users running iOS 11 can start placing thousands of true-to-scale virtual items in their home to see just what they’re getting before the package comes.

Simply tap the camera in the Amazon app and then tap ‘AR View’ to browse products in AR—containing everything from chairs to teapots.

Amazon’s ‘AR View’ is exclusive to iPhones for now. Android users with flagship-level phones could soon have access to a host of similar AR functions however thanks to Google’s ARCore, which was announced a few months after Apple’s ARKit. ARCore is soon to be available on Google Pixel devices and Samsung Galaxy S8 and above, but won’t be integrated into other Android phones until Google and its partners think it’s ready.

Retailing giants like IKEA, Target, and Wayfair have also added AR functions to their iOS apps, making it easier for you to buy physical items by giving you a reliable visual representation—but there’s an interesting side effect to all this that people still aren’t really talking about. Effectively companies are now digitizing their products, and probably trying to find out ways to do it quicker so they can eventually offer their entire catalog virtually.

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8 Cool AR Apps to Try Now That Apple iOS 11 is Here

While low-profile, high-function AR headsets are still somewhere in our near future (with a form factor that doesn’t make it look like you’re wearing a weird helmet), these first steps by retailers to offer virtual shopping, albeit it with a limited catalog, will no doubt be considered integral features in upcoming AR headsets of tomorrow. Now, the virtual items represented are little more than hollow props, but the level of articulation these items could take on in the future might actually let you ‘try it before you buy it’ in a certain sense. The possibility of browsing through AR portals stocked with virtual microwave ovens that let you microwave a burrito to hear what the ding sounds like when it’s done, or a flat-pack desk that shows you how to assemble it before you buy it, aren’t really that far out. Creating such a detailed 3D item is entirely possible now, although probably not feasible on a large scale. Not yet anyway.

Healthy speculation aside, virtual reality is here now in consumers hands from a variety of established brands, and companies like Amazon haven’t plunged head-first into creating VR shopping apps for a reason—retailers know AR is instantly going to appeal to average consumers as a productivity device and they’re starting now so that when it comes time, they’ll be at the forefront.

Some of our articles feature Amazon affiliate links. We’ve disabled them for this article.

The post Amazon Brings Augmented Reality Product Previews to iOS App appeared first on Road to VR.

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Nokia and Xiaomi Announce a Long-term Partnership to “Explore” AR and VR

The Finnish and Chinese companies today signed a cross-licensing patent deal ‘focused around the data center’, according to a CNBC report. This will allow Nokia and Xiaomi to develop new products, as they look to collaborate further in areas such as the Internet of Things, augmented and virtual reality, and artificial intelligence.

The deal represents a positive strategic move for both companies, with Finland’s Nokia gaining a significant Chinese partner, and China’s Xiaomi bolstering their patent portfolio as they look to expand their products and services business globally. Along with some unspecified patents that Xiaomi has acquired from Nokia, both companies are licensing cellular standard essential patents from each other, and Nokia is providing network infrastructure equipment.

The partnership is also expected to “explore” AR and VR, which both companies have been investing in already, with Nokia’s major OZO VR camera platform, and Xiaomi’s Mi VR, a smartphone-based VR headset solution.

“Xiaomi is committed to building sustainable, long-term partnerships with global technology leaders”, said Lei Jun, chairman and CEO of Xiaomi. “Our collaboration with Nokia will enable us to tap on its leadership in building large, high performance networks and formidable strength in software and services, as we seek to create even more remarkable products and services that deliver the best user experience to our (product brand) Mi fans worldwide”.

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AR Headset Startup CastAR is Reportedly Shutting Down

According to a report from Polygon, augmented reality company CastAR is heading for a shutdown, laying off staff from the Palo Alto headquarters and its internal AR software development studio in Salt Lake City. CastAR’s consumer hardware was due to launch this year.

Concept render of the CastAR headset and controller | Image courtesy CastAR

When Valve shelved an internal AR project in 2013, former employees Jeri Ellsworth and Rick Johnson were allowed to take their research with them and spun out the company Technical Illusions— eventually renamed CastAR—initially running a successful Kickstarter campaign which raised over $1 million, followed by landing a $15 million Series A investment from VC Playground Global in 2015. Polygon reports that according to former employees, the venture firm declined to invest any more in the company last week, and that CastAR had “failed to land any Series B funding from other potential investors.”

Following the initial article revealing CastAR’s woes, Polygon has since updated their report to clarify that a “core group of employees are working to try and sell the existing technology.”

This unfortunate news comes during a wealth of positive developments in the field of AR technology. The recent screen-based AR solutions (such as Google Tango and Apple’s phone and tablet AR) and a number of AR headsets.

A prototype development kit of the CastAR headset, circa 2015 | Photo by Road to VR

CastAR’s tech was initially based on the novel use of dual projectors, which required a retro-reflective mat on which the images appear.

CastAR’s VR clip-on concept art | Image courtesy CastAR

Despite its advantages (particularly the ease of supporting multiple viewers), the approach required a number of tradeoffs, including portability (as you’d need to take one of the display mats with you in order to use the headset at another location—and seemed best suited for more niche tabletop gaming-like functionality (as the company has demonstrated on several occasions). The company had long claimed that an optical add-on would allow the device to double as a VR headset, though we never did get a chance to see the functionality demonstrated.

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