Japanese game developer, gumi, Inc. known for role-playing games such as Brave Frontier and Phantom of the Kill has announced a new strategic business partnership. Becoming the latest studio to join with not-for-profit organisation EUVR.
The company, founded in 2015 was set up to enhance development of virtual reality (VR) within the European Union. Active in over nineteen countries already, EUVR is the backer to a number of events – including the forthcoming UNCONVENTION on January 23rd in Amsterdam – an online portal and other activities designed to help spread the influence of VR; and the development of both the VR and AR ecosystems. This deal means that existing developers in the region will have further access to financial and knowledge resources.
Speaking on the agreement, which comes almost a year to the day since gumi Inc announced their VR incubator CEO Hironao Kunimitsu noted the development since then. “This past year has been tremendously successful for gumi as we’ve broken new ground in the VR industry. Amongst many milestones, we launched our own incubators in Japan and Korea, called Tokyo VR Startups and Seoul VR Startups, respectively. Additionally, we invested in and became a joint member of the venture capital investment group ‘The VR Fund,’ based out of the US.” On EUVR specifically, Kunimitsu noted. “Our partnership with EUVR is the next step toward our vision of being a global leader in virtual reality and working closely with innovative developers in the European region.”
“We’re thrilled that gumi has joined to help us further build the VR development community across Europe.” Concurred Co-Founder of EUVR Juan Bossicard. “The European VR community has grown to over 14,000 members to date, and gumi’s investment of time and resources is certainly a vote of confidence in EUVR’s commitment to the VR community. We will continue working hard to provide best-in-class resources that are knowledgeable and well-connected to our members in order to further the global VR ecosystem.”
As regular VRFocus readers know, deals and partnerships happen at a pace in both the VR and AR industries. We’ll continue to keep you up to date on all the latest goings on.