Category: VirZOOM Bike

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VR Fitness Company VirZOOM closes $5.5M Seed Funding Round

VirZOOM the videogame peripheral company behind the VirZOOM bike controller for virtual reality (VR) head-mounted displays (HMDs) has announced the closure of a seed funding round, securing the fitness firm $5.5 million of investment.

VirZOOM vSports Competition

The round featured both existing and new investors including Skywood Capital, with personal investments from partners at Eastham Capital, Fairhaven Capital, and Equity Resource Investments. Co-Founder and CEO Eric Janszen is the largest single investor. New investors included Greycroft partner Jon Goldman through his GC VR Gaming Tracker Fund. The Tracker fund is focused on VR, augmented reality (AR), esports, and game start-ups.

The round is intended to fund the company to expand its commercial business worldwide with 2nd generation products VZ Module and VZ Sensor that make any stationary bike VZ-Ready for VirZOOM VR Fitness content.

VirZOOM was co-founded by veteran game architect Eric Malafeew and finance and technology industry executive Eric Janszen in February 2015. It began shipping its VZ Arcade VR fitness game suite commercially in June 2016,  supporting HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and PlayStation VR. Then in 2017 VirZOOM announced plans about getting into the worldwide commercial gym market in partnership with Life Fitness, a commercial fitness equipment company.

 

“VirZOOM is skipping past the early adopters to bring VR to mass market customers through cardio exercise motivation. The company is making actual sales, shipping products commercially for a year and a half and forming commercial partnerships with major fitness equipment companies like Life Fitness, who can help VirZOOM scale,” said Jon Goldman, investor and founder of the GC VR Gaming Tracker Fund in a statement.

“We welcome our new investors and are pleased to see many previous investors participate as well, some for a fourth addition to their previous investments,” said Co-Founder and CEO Eric Janszen. “Their continued confidence in our project is greatly appreciated by the team.”

VR fitness is becoming much more of a hot topic nowadays and as more companies invest and enter the filed, VRFocus will let you know.

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Get Fit While You Play, With the VirZOOM VR platform

It’s something we’ve all wanted at one point – a way to play games and get fit. A way to truly enjoy burning calories, all while building up high scores. Well lucky for us VirZOOM want to do just that, and their VirZOOM virtual reality (VR) fitness platform might be the best way to feel the burn in VR.

To get the full VirZOOM experience you’ll need the VirZOOM Bike and VZ Sensor. The kit all works with the Gear VR, so this experience is already within the grasp of thousands of VR users – those looking for a more high-end experience can use Oculus Rift, HTC Vive or PlayStation VR head-mounted displays (HMDs).

VirZOOM’s founders have all the necessary experience to make this work – Eric Janszen has 25 years of experience in the technology industry, and is an avid cyclist, while Eric Malafeew is former Chief Architect at Harmonix Music Systems.

The only question now is whether the equipment is worth the cost. The VirZOOM Bike costs $399 – the price might be worth it, as the handlebars are equipped with buttons for gameplay, in addition to heart rate sensors.

If the bike is out of your price range, the VZ Sensor might be more what you’re looking for. The Sensor attaches to any ordinary exercise bike, and can track pedal speed and direction – but you’ll need an extra controller to be held in at least one hand to play most videogames this way.

But if you purchase either the VirZOOM Bike or VZ Sensor, you get seven arcade games to play with. The VirZOOM Arcade is available on Steam and PSN, and will soon launch a much lighter package of only two games on Gear VR, though all seven will be available by October 2017.

To buy the VirZOOM Bike or VZ Sensor, take a look at the VirZOOM website.

For all the exercise peripherals you could want for your VR device, stay on VRFocus.