Category: vr investment

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FOV Ventures Raises $18 Million to Fund European Metaverse Startups

FOV Ventures is a newly formed venture capital firm which plans to invest in early-stage metaverse startups. The firm says it has raised an initial $18.1 million as part of its first fund.

Founding partners David Haynes and Petri Rajahalme announced this month FOV Ventures, a Finland-based early-stage VC firm through which the duo plans to focus on Europe-based metaverse startups.

The firm says it has raised $18.1 million (€16.5 million) so far and plans to cap its first fund at $27.5 million (€25 million). Through the fund the firm plans to invest $274K–550K (€250K–500K) in up to 25 companies in pre-seed and seed stages.

The company says it is looking to fund startups working specifically in the areas of ‘Avatars & Identity’, ‘Retail & Digital Commerce’, ‘Immersive Social’, ‘Future of Work’, and ‘Tools & Infrastructure’.

“The metaverse represents a major expansion of today’s Internet, becoming more immersive, built with new tools such as real-time 3D game engines, and spanning an increasingly blurred line between the virtual and physical world,” the firm says.

FOV Ventures founding partners, Dave Haynes (left) and Petri Rajahalme (right) | Image courtesy FOV Ventures

Both founding partners have backgrounds in venture funding, according to the firm. Dave Haynes was previously part of Vive X, HTC’s VR investment fund, and the Europe-focused VC firm Seedcamp. Haynes purportedly led investments in LIV, Maze Theory, and Bodyswaps during his tenure at Vive X. Petri Rajahalme was Managing Director at the Nordic XR Startups fund, where he is said to have led investments in eight XR companies, among other work in the XR investment space prior to the formation of FOV Ventures.

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‘Township Tale’ Studio Raises $12.4 Million to Expand Studio & Development

Australia-based Studio Alta, the developer behind A Township Tale, today announced it has raised a $12.4 million seed investment to expand its studio and accelerate development of the game.

Studio Alta had been quietly developing its brilliant co-op focused VR game A Township Tale for years on PC as a small indie team. Though it was loved by many who played it, the title remained something of a sleeper, likely due in part to the fact that the studio has only ever distributed it independently rather than through storefronts like SteamVR or Oculus PC.

Through an impressive effort the studio managed to port A Township Tale to Quest where it seems the game has found the right conditions to thrive. The studio says the game spent “seven weeks at #1 on the Oculus charts” and “produced historical engagement metrics for the platform […]” at its debut.

And it would seem investors took notice. The studio today announced it has raised a $12.4 million seed round… and not just from any old investors either; the round was co-led by Makers Fund and Andreessen Horowitz, the latter being a well known name in the venture capital space—with nearly $20 billion in assets under management—and an early investor in Oculus. The round also saw participation by Pioneer Fund, Boost VC, muru-D, and Thomas Rice.

Image courtesy Alta

Alta says it plans to use the funds to “further develop proprietary content and IP, expand the team, and position the game for new platforms.”

“Alta started out with a single quest: to create worlds that bring people together,” said Tima Anoshechkin, CEO and co-founder of Alta. “This funding helps us expand that vision beyond just growing our flagship game, and allows us to expand the team, create new opportunities and partnerships to collaborate with, and continue to develop world-class technology whether with VR or other platforms. Whenever and wherever you are playing, our experience will always be engaging, seamless and fun.”

Road to VR further spoke with Anoshechkin in to learn more about the studio’s priorities and aim for the future, including a hint that the game could come to PSVR or PSVR 2.

Q: What’s the biggest focus for A Township Tale development in 2022?

A: We have accumulated a lot of technical debt. The goal is to clean everything up, so we can release features faster to the community and bring A Township Tale to as many platforms as possible. Also we are really focusing on onboarding experience and explaining the game to the new players in a very friendly way.

Q: What’s the long-term vision for A Township Tale?

A: Our long term vision to create a unique experience where there is always reason for players to stay. I don’t like to use metaverse as much, but if we can deliver a unique world experience to each user that they have agency over, can share with their friends and visit their friend’s world seamlessly that would be a worthwhile goal to build towards.

Q: What’s the long term plan for the studio (plan to work on multiple projects or focus solely on A Township Tale)?

A: For now focus is solely on A Township Tale.

Q: What can you tell me about the game’s reception on Quest?

A: We can’t share many metrics as we in preparation for our next round, but studio is cash flow positive and definitely there is enough users in VR space to support mid size studios.

Q: How large is the studio?

A: More than two-dozen and growing. We can’t provide exact number, as a lot of people have joined, but still in on-boarding phase or just waiting for their notice periods to end. But studio tripled in size since the game launch.

Q: Do you expect A Township Tale to come to PSVR / PSVR 2?

A: We would love to.

Q: What are you long-term plans for in-app purchases (IAP) in A Township Tale?

A: We are pretty much open to everything as long as the game is not P2W and our community is on board with IAP strategy.

Q: What’s the most surprising/interesting thing you’ve seen players do in A Township Tale?

A: I am still surprised by number of people in VR ecosystem that only have mobile and Quest devices. As a result it really forces you to re-examine how games are build and how to onboard players. For a lot of this people Quest is their first high end gaming device, which is mind boggling to me.

Alongside the announcement Alta says it is actively hiring. While it will take time for the studio to ramp up, we’d expect updates to A Township Tale to expand in scope going forward. The Quest version is missing some major parts of the game compared to the PC version, so there’s some catching up to do before genuine progress is made to move both versions forward. The studio has also said previously that it hopes to add cross-play support with PC players eventually.

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Epic Games Awarded Grants to 31 XR Projects in 2021 Through the $100M MegaGrants Fund

Since 2019 Epic Games (well known as the creators of Unreal Engine & Fortnite) has run the Epic MegaGrants program, a $100 million fund to financially support projects built with Unreal Engine. In 2021 the program awarded grants to 31 XR projects.

Epic recently recapped the complete list of MegaGrant recipients in 2021, comprising a whopping 390 individual projects, each of which received a grant from the program of up to $500,000

By our count, 31 one of those were built with XR in mind. The projects range widely from games to simulation to education and more. Here’s a few that caught our eye, along with the complete list or XR recipients further below.

BRUNNER Elektronik – Unreal Engine Integration for NOVASIM Flight Simulator

HumanCodeable – Advanced VR Framework

Tribe XR – DJ in VR

VRSpeaking LLC. – Ovation

All Epic MegaGrant XR Recipients in 2021

  1. 6th Sense VR – Ayatana Concept (France)
  2. ​​ALO VR – VigourVR (Singapore)
  3. Art Reality Studio – IVR 6 (United States)
  4. BRUNNER Elektronik AG – Unreal Engine Integration for BRUNNER NOVASIM VR/MR (Switzerland)
  5. b.ReX GmbH – Intelligent Cycling
  6. Byker Biotech Pty Ltd – VR Lab for 3D human specimens (China)
  7. Dmitro Tsalko – EnergoVR (Ukraine)
  8. Eternal Monke Games – Dragon.IK – Universal Inverse Kinematics Plugin
  9. HumanCodeable – Advanced VR Framework (Germany)
  10. IMP – Interactive Media Production – VR Fire Safety Simulator
  11. Lightscape VR (Germany)
  12. North Carolina State University (NCSU) – transVRse (United States)
  13. ONMOTIO – Immersive Technical Training in Inhospitable or Dangerous Zones Using VR (Canada)
  14. Research Center for Molecular Medicine (CeMM) – DataDiVR Interactive Data Analytics Platform (Austria)
  15. Tribe XR – DJ in VR (United States)
  16. University of North Carolina at Asheville – Interfacing Unreal with Physical Computing & New Media VR Pedagogy (United States)
  17. Vantari VR – Critical Care Procedural Training Suite (Australia)
  18. VRSpeaking LLC. – Ovation (United States)
  19. Western University – Using AR/VR to Improve Pediatric Surgical Patient’s Hospital Experience (Canada)
  20. Raytracer PTY Ltd. – Underwater Virtual Reality Simulation for Astronaut Training (Australia)
  21. Universitat Pompeu Fabra – Mixed Reality in Fetal Intervention Using Unreal Engine (Spain)
  22. VYV Corporation – Photon Augmented Reality Studio (Canada)
  23. Lemay – AR Workflow from Revit to Reality (Canada)
  24. New Reality Co. – Rainforest: A Multiplayer AR Experience (United States)
  25. Oakland University – Augmented Reality Center (ARC) for Industrial Applications (United States)
  26. Marquette University – Immersive and Augmented Media Design Fellowship (United States)
  27. Brainstorm Multimedia S.L. – EDISON – Unreal Template Based AR Solution for Education (Spain)
  28. Createxion – Draw-It AR (India)
  29. University of Michigan – AR System for Lunar EVAs (United States)
  30. Visometry GmbH – HQ-CAD-AR on a Driving Car (Germany)
  31. RealityArts Studio / Velarion – The Stranger (Turkey)

Epic says that MegaGrants awards are not investments or loans, and recipients can use the money to do “whatever will make their project successful,” with no oversight from the company. Similarly, recipients retain full rights to their IP and can choose to publish their projects however they want.  If you’re working on something related to Unreal Engine, you can apply for consideration too!

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Avatar Creation Tool ‘Ready Player Me’ Raises $13M to Provide Metaverse-wide Avatars

Wolf3D, the Estonian startup behind web-based avatar creator Ready Player Me, has closed a $13 million funding round. The company says it will use the funds to further build out its avatar creation tools and eventually allow developers to earn money through the sale of in-game assets and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

Ready Player Me studio Wolf3D has secured a $13 million Series A funding round, which was led by Wise and Teleport co-founders Taavet+Sten, and features participation from GitHub co-founder Tom Preston-Werner, Samsung Next, NordicNinja, Konvoy Ventures, and others. The news was first reported by Venture Beat.

Read Player Me allows anyone to create and customize their own avatar, which can then be imported into social VR platforms such as VRChat, Spatial, LIV, MeetinVR, and more.

Working on both desktop and mobile devices, Ready Player Me presents an easy way of doing so, letting you use the same skin across multiple platforms—some 900+ apps and games now, the company says.

Image courtesy Wolf3D

With the fresh funding, Wolf3D says in a blog post that it will build out its custom content creation tools, invest in avatar art through additional styles and body types, and improve avatar performance.

In addition to building APIs and SDKs to improve the developer experience, the studio says it will also be focusing on making Ready Player Me a “revenue generator for developers” by allowing third-party devs to sell in-game assets and NFTs—cryptographic tokens that exist on a blockchain and can be easily bought, sold and traded.

The company hasn’t said when it will roll out its monetization strategy, however it lists it as “coming soon.”

In the meantime, Wolf3D says its scaling up from 30 people today to over 70, with multiple roles offered across Europe and the US. The latest funding round brings the company’s lifetime outside investment to $16.5 million, following a $2.1 million seed round in July 2020.

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Resolution Games Acquires Studio Behind ‘Carly and the Reaperman’ Quest Port

Resolution Games, a leading developer of XR content, has acquired Zero Index, the studio which helped bring Odd Raven Studios’ VR co-op game Carly and the Reaperman (2018) to the Quest platform earlier this year.

Zero Index is a game studio and consulting firm focused on B2B services within both the game and IT industry. Founded by Tomas Ahlström and Alexander Milton in 2020, the team has worked to expand the game industry in the region of Östergötland in eastern Sweden.

As a part of the acquisition, the four-person team, which is based in Linköping, will be rebranded as Resolution Tech. Ahlström has been tapped to fill the role of studio manager within Resolution Games.

“The Zero Index team has a number of impressive accomplishments under their belt, including their exemplary work that helped us bring Carly and the Reaperman to Oculus Quest earlier this year,” said Tommy Palm, CEO and founder of Resolution Games. “Demand for great VR and AR experiences is growing at an exponential rate. With more hardware choices than ever in the pipeline from tech’s biggest players, having a team experienced in bringing games to different markets and platforms will help us continue to reach new players everywhere they choose to play.”

Additionally, the studio today announced four new hires including Head of People & Culture Natalie Mellin, General Counsel Ebba Waltré, Product Manager Johan Gästrin, and Finance Director Rickard Åstrand.

This undoubtedly comes as a direct result of its Series C funding closed earlier this year, which brought $25 million to the company to help the Stockholm-based studio expand. The studio has also created several well-performing VR titles such as Demeo (2021), Blaston (2020), Cook-Out: A Sandwich Tale (2020), and Angry Birds: Isle of Pigs (2019). 

The studio most recently announced Ultimechs, a futuristic multiplayer VR sport coming to headsets sometime in 2022.

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Leading Hand-tracking Company Ultraleap Raises $82 Million Investment

Ultraleap, a leading company focused on hand-tracking interfaces, this week announced it has secured a £60 million (~$82 million) Series D investment, with the goal of expanding its hand-tracking and mid-air haptic tech in the XR space and beyond.

Formerly known as Ultrahaptics, Ultraleap was formed after the UK-based haptics company acquired leading hand-tracking company Leap Motion back in 2019. The new name clearly defined the merger’s unique combination of mid-air ultrasonic haptics now underpinned by some of the best hand-tracking tech in the industry.

This week Ultraleap announced it has raised a £60 million (~$82 million) Series D investment with participation from new investors Tencent, British Patient Capital, and CMB International, alongside existing investors Mayfair Equity Partners and IP Group plc.

“With this investment round, Ultraleap will continue to bring Gemini to different operating systems and increase their investment in tooling to enable developers to build more applications using the best interface—your hands. Ultraleap will also continue to invest in R&D to drive their machine-learning-based hand tracking even further ahead,” the company said in its investment announcement.

Ultraleap is betting that hand-tracking will be the primary input for XR and the metaverse. Last month the company released its latest revision.

While the company has been trying to get its tech into the XR space for many years now, it has yet to find significant traction. Though Ultraleap hand-tracking can be found on a few headsets like those from Varjo and Pimax, leading devices implementing hand-tracking—like Quest 2, HoloLens, and Magic Leap—are using their own solutions, as far as we know.

However, with a growing number of XR devices on the market and the steady march toward consumer-friendly AR glasses, the company seems poised to find the right fit eventually.

Ultraleap is also looking to find a home for its tech outside of the XR realm. The company has long been angling its tech in the automotive space as an in-car interface, as well as the out-of-home space in areas like exhibits, marketing installations, and touchless self-service kiosks.

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Social VR Startup Raises $57 Million Investment Led by Major Japanese Mobile Network

Japanese social VR startup HIKKY announced today that it has raised ¥6.5 billion (~$57 million), led by Japanese mobile network operator NTT Docomo. The startup says it will use the funds to expand its web-based metaverse platform.

Founded in 2018, Japan-based Hikky is best known for its series of ‘Vket’ events, virtual marketplaces where exhibitors market and sell real and virtual goods to attendees.

Image courtesy Hikky

The company says that its virtual events have drawn more than a million visitors and have attracted major brands as exhibitors like HP, Tencent, Disney, Bandai Namco, Audi, and more, algonside independent creators selling virtual goods.

A Disney branded booth at a Vket event | Image courtesy Hikky

Following its latest Vket 6 event this Summer, the company today announced it has raised a ¥6.5 billion (~$57 million) Series A funding round, led by Japanese mobile network operator NTT Docomo (other participants weren’t revealed). Hikky says the amount is the “initial stage” of the Series A funding round, and that it is open to additional funding.

The company says the capital will be used to strengthen its foundation, expand products both domestically and abroad, and continue to develop its web-based metaverse platform, Vket Cloud.

While the company’s Vket events have largely been hosted in social VR platform VRChat, Hikky is betting long term on its own Vket Cloud platform, which it says is designed as an open metaverse platform where users can host virtual spaces on their own domains which are accessible through any web browser, be it in or out of VR.

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Sandbox VR Announces $37M Series B Funding to Expand Out-of-home VR Locations

Out-of-home VR destination Sandbox VR today announced an additional $37 million funding round that the company is using to support its continued expansion. In addition to its dozen worldwide locations, Sandbox VR says it’s working to nearly doubling that.

The Series B funding was led by a16z, and includes participation by Alibaba and Craft. According to Crunchbase data, this puts their lifetime outside financing to around $120 million.

Like pretty much everyone in the out-of-home entertainment sector, Sandbox VR went through its own share of financial challenges over the past year due to COVID-19 closures. It both filed for, and reemerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy following debt restructure.

“We are excited to use the latest round of funding for content development, cutting edge technology and accelerated growth,” says Steve Zhao, CEO and founder of Sandbox VR. “With more stores on the way, we’ll be ramping up our internal studios as well as developing our SDK to open up publishing in the near future.”

And it appears Sandbox VR is making a quick comeback. The company opened three locations in July—Austin, Las Vegas, and Shanghai—and is aiming to open ten more as it enters 2022. Currently, the company operates 12 locations across North America and Asia. Paramus (New Jersey), Toronto (Canada) and London (UK) locations are marked as “coming soon.”

The fresh funding round suggests that VR arcades may be seeing a renewal in investor confidence, although Sandbox VR is probably one of the best-positioned in the sector due to its relatively small physical footprint requirements, in-house content studio, and licensed IP such as its Star Trek: Discovery multiplayer missions.

Sandbox VR has survived The VOID, one of its biggest competitors (certainly the most flashy), which permanently closed all locations worldwide last year. Coincidentally, The VOID’s flagship space at the Grand Canal Shoppes in Las Vegas is now a Sandbox VR location.

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Promising VR MMO ‘Zenith: The Last City’ Just Got a Huge Boost With $10 Million in Funding

Ramen VR, the studio behind the upcoming VR MMO Zenith: The Last City announced today that it has raised $10 million in venture capital. The game is set to launch later this year on all major headsets.

Zenith: The Last City got its start with a successful Kickstarter back in 2019. Despite raising $280,000—significantly more than its $25,000 goal—that isn’t much budget to create a full-blown MMO. Luckily the game just got a huge boost that is sure to carry it to launch and secure its near-term future.

Following several closed alpha tests held earlier this year, the studio behind the project, Ramen VR, announced today that it has raised a $10 million Series A investment with participation from VC firms Makers Fund, Anthos Capital, and Dune Ventures.

The VCs must have been impressed with the metrics from the game’s alpha tests, with Ramen VR claiming that “player retention numbers in Zenith: The Last City resemble those of the most popular F2P games,” with some players spending as much as 40 hours a week in the game.

Image courtesy Ramen VR

The studio says it will use the cash injection to scale its development team and to get Zenith off the ground at launch later this year. A specific release date for the game has yet to be announced but it’s planned for release on PC VR, Quest, and PSVR, covering all major VR platforms. Understandably, Ramen VR is now hiring for several development roles.

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XR Training & Gaming Startup Touts $5.2M Investment and Lamar Jackson Partnership

XR startup StatusPRO has announced it has raised a $5.2 million seed investment. While the company hasn’t fully revealed its product, it says it’s using AR and VR to create immersive sports training and gaming experiences. Teasing a partnership with NFL quarterback Lamar Jackson, the company claims its tech will usher in “a new era of football.”

Earlier this month StatusPro announced a seed investment of $5.2 million, building on a partnership with NFL quarterback Lamar Jackson to create the Lamar Jackson Experience, which the company describes as “a suite of first-person virtual reality products that include an at-home virtual reality game, arcade games, and live activation.”

The seed round was led by KB Partners and TitletownTech, with participation from Greycroft, Verizon Ventures, Haslam Sports Group, 49ers Enterprises, SC Holdings, and “additional strategic celebrity investors.”

The minority-owned StatusPro says the capital will “accelerate the expansion of products aimed at reshaping how players and coaches prepare for games, while defining a new form of engagement between athletes and fans.”

The company is focused on both XR sports training and gaming. On the sports training side, the company hasn’t publicly detailed its platform, but claims it “uses real-time player data to power holographic experiences that give players the ability to simulate any practice or game scenario without the physical impact that comes with playing the game.” StatusPro claims its tech is being employed by “several” NFL teams, including Lamar Jackson’s Baltimore Ravens.

These XR training experiences also form the basis for fan-focused gaming experiences. That seems to be the idea behind the Lamar Jackson Experience, which the company has teased but not fully revealed. According to the company’s website, the experience is “coming soon on Oculus” (and probably Quest specifically, seeing as that’s the headset shown in the teaser).

“Like most people from my generation I am a huge gamer, and the first time I demoed the StatusPro experience I was blown away by how realistic and fun it was,” Lamar Jackson said in his StatusPro partnership announcement last year. “Ever since I was a kid, I always wanted to play in the NFL and now that I do, I am excited about sharing my experience with fans and especially kids through this VR gaming platform.”

StatusPro claims that “Lamar Jackson has been an integral part of the development, strategic planning and promotion of these experiences, and a true partner in all aspects.”

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