UK-based VR studio XR Games, known for its recently released Zombieland VR game, announced this week that it has raised an additional £1.5 million (~$2 million) investment to expand its studio with 20 new jobs and a focus on original IP.
XR Games has made a business out of building VR games as movie tie-ins. The studio’s most recent projects are Zombieland VR (2021) and Angry Birds Movie 2 VR (2019). With a new £1.5 million (~$2 million) investment announced this week the studio is hoping to kick-start projects built around original IP.
The investment was led by Maven Equity Finance with participation from existing XR Games investor ACT Capital Partners and Praetura Ventures. XR Games says the investment will allow it to expand the studio with 20 new job offerings, fund additional R&D in AR and VR, and kick-start projects built on original IP. The studio says it will also expand its work-for-hire division to continue contracted development work.
Though XR Games didn’t specify what series it considers the investment round, it has raised two prior investments; $2.6 million in 2018 and £1.5 million in 2019. The most recent investment brings the studio’s total funding to around $6.6 million.
VR developer ForeVR Games today announced it has raised an additional $7 million in seed capital, bringing its total capital raise to $8.5 million. The studio is focused on bringing classic real world games—like bowling—into VR with an emphasis on social play.
Having launched in 2020, ForeVR is a newcomer to the VR space; the studio’s first game, ForeVR Bowl, launched less than three months ago. But that hasn’t stopped it from aggressively raising capital.
Today ForeVR announced that it has raised an additional $7 million in seed capital, bringing its total raise to $8.5 million. The latest investment was led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation from Galaxy Interactive, All Star Capital, Mark Pincus, and Emmett Shear.
The studio says it plans to use the new funding to focus on building more social VR games, growing its development team, expanding to more platforms, and continuing to improve ForeVR Bowl over time.
ForeVR Bowl launched back in May on Quest and the studio has now confirmed that it’s due to release on Steam “soon.”
$8.5 million in seed funding might seem like a lot for a studio building relatively simple games like ForeVR Bowl, but the founders are pitching investors on a grander scheme—with the premise that VR is on the cusp of going mainstream, ForeVR says it has a singular goal: “to translate the most popular and classic IRL games into immersive virtual reality experiences where friends and families of all ages can connect and have fun.”
With the studio’s co-founders, Marcus Segal and Michael Pagano Doom, having backgrounds in Zynga, it’s clear why they believe that simple games mixed with social fun has big potential for VR. And it’s no surprise that they’re attracting investors that believe the same thing; Mark Pincus, the founder of Zynga, is among them.
“ForeVR Bowl and the rest of the ForeVR lineup represent the best of what’s possible with VR games and, I believe, will be as important to this medium as Zynga was to mobile,” said Sam Englebardt, of Galaxy Digital, one of the studio’s investors. “[Co-founders] Marcus and Mike are masters of blending hyper fun and social gameplay with just enough realism—and some killer music—to make you feel like you’re there and make you never want to leave. I’ll see you at the lanes!”
ForeVR hasn’t announced any games beyond ForeVRBowl but isn’t hiding its intentions to build out a host of titles in the future. Given the focus on bringing real-world activities to life in VR, what do you want to see from the studio next?
Rezzil, a UK-based VR sports training and analytics startup, announced that its secured an investment round of over £2 million (~$2.75 million), which will be used to promote its new consumer-focused sports training platform, Player 22.
Rezzil’s investors include soccer professionals Thierry Henry, Gary Neville, Vincent Kompany, Michail Antonio, Tyrone Mings, and Anthony Watson. According to Crunchbasedata, this brings the Manchester-based company’s overall investment to £3.8 million (~$5.25 million).
Founded in 2017, Rezzil produces tools for post-match analysis, virtual training and rehabilitation with the ability to monitor and track player recovery. Now the company is getting ready to pitch its pro-focused tech to consumers with Player 22, an at-home training app compatible with Oculus Quest. Like its enterprise training tech, it was designed and tested by UEFA pro licensed coaches.
“Rezzil is at the forefront of the virtual reality revolution and enables people to experience sport like never before and athletes to train, crucially, without adding load,” investor and former English Premiere League player Gary Neville says. “This is a key consideration for managers that want to maintain the peak physical condition of their players, to ensure that they can perform to their optimum, on the pitch.”
When it launches on Quest July 29th, Player 22 will offer up a number of sport-based games designed to improve cognitive performance, concentration, reaction times, coordination and control. You can wishlist it on Quest here.
HaptX, the company building VR gloves with advanced haptics, this week announced that is has raised $12 million in a Series A-1 investment which will be used to open a new headquarters based in Redmond, WA, and expand its team.
This week the company announced it has raised $12 million in new funding in a Series A-1 investment round, bringing the company’s total capital raise to $31 million.
The round largely (if not completely) consists of capital from existing HaptX investors: Verizon Ventures, Mason Avenue Investments, Taylor Frigon Capital Partners, and Upheaval Investments.
Along with the new funding, HaptX says it’s opening a new 15,000 square-foot headquarters in Redmond, WA, growing its existing San Luis Obispo, CA office by 50%, and over the next 12 months hiring “dozens of new positions across all areas of the company.”
Image courtesy HaptX
Earlier this year the company launched its new and improved HaptX DK2 VR glove with improvements to haptics, force-feedback, size, comfort, and manufacturability. The latest version is said to apply up to 40 pounds of force-feedback per hand, along with better stiffness and lower latency. At the same time, the DK2’s magnetic finger-tracking tech has been shrunk down from two external boxes to a small board which is built directly into the gloves.
With the new funding announced this week, the company says it will be manufacturing a second run of the DK2, with the first run purportedly selling out within six months—not bad for a glove with a price tag of tens of thousands of dollars per unit.
Virtual reality gained impressive ground in 2020, a recent PwC study finds. Global VR content revenues reportedly increased by around 30% year-over-year, beating out film, traditional video games, and music.
As reported by Protocol, VR’s global content revenue is estimated to be around $1.8 billion, or 31.7% more than in 2019—making it the fastest-growing media segment last year. All major entertainment and media types were taken into account, including the worst performers in 2020: traditional print and broadcast television.
The study, which provides projections out to 2025, comes from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), one of the world’s largest professional services network alongside ‘Big Four’ firms Deloitte, Ernst & Young, and KPMG.
PwC’s Global Entertainment & Media Outlook 2021–2025, Omdia | Image courtesy PwC
They’re impressive numbers, however PwC maintains consumer adoption of VR was slower than expected, which has made the industry increase its focus on the enterprise and commercial sector. Some media types are also expected to take a temporary hit in the near-term due to a return to normalcy after the COVID-19 pandemic, however PwC projects that VR will still be the fastest-rising entertainment and media segment between now and 2025, with revenues projected to rise at a 30.3% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) to $6.9 billion.
PwC says one of the biggest drivers of VR content revenue growth in 2020 was games, and it’s likely to stay that way moving forward. The study projects VR video is also on the move upwards though, estimating that its global revenue of $615 million in 2020 will expand to $1.4 billion by 2025.
All things considered, that’s pretty small in the grand scheme of things. For comparison, PwC says subscription video on-demand accounts for around $50 billion in 2020; as Protocol notes, PC and casual gaming is expected balloon to $194.7 billion in annual revenue by 2025.
PwC’s Global Entertainment & Media Outlook 2021–2025, Omdia | Image courtesy PwC
PwC also provides a breakdown of headset type, and how they may grow in adoption in the future. Mobile VR headsets, which require smartphones to drive graphics, are well on their way out as standalone and “home VR headsets” continue as preferred VR devices. That last category likely includes both PC VR headsets (Valve’s Index, HTC Vive, etc) and console headsets (PlayStation VR).
Like Facebook, PwC seems to have a lot of confidence it the growth potential of standalone VR headsets in the coming years. If it wasn’t already apparent, that may give developers some indication on where things are headed, and which platforms might be worth targeting to capture the largest potential install base.
Demeo and Blaston developer Resolution Games closed its Series C funding round with $25 million, which it says will allow for new titles, continued game updates and studio growth.
This brings the studio’s total funding to $38.5 million. The Series C round was led by Qualcomm Ventures LCC and BITKRAFT Ventures, along with Knutsson Holdings AB. There was also participation from investors from prior rounds, such as GV, MizMaa, GP Bullhound and more.
According to a statement from Resolution, the additional funding will allow for studio growth and continual updates of their existing VR titles:
The studio plans to dedicate more resources to ongoing development of existing titles as well as delivering additional live games. Already with more than 100 employees internationally, this latest infusion of capital allows the studio to accelerate company growth even further and scale ahead of the projected market growth as the industry model shifts toward games as a service (GaaS), which requires larger teams to support games post-launch with live-ops teams.
Boaz Peer, Senior Investment Director at Qualcomm Ventures Europe and Qualcomm Isreal, is joining Resolution Games’ board of directors. Malte Barth, a founding partner of BITKRAFT Ventures, will join as a board observer.
Resolution Games are the studio behind several prominent VR games, such as Demeo, Blaston, Cook-Out: A Sandwich Tale, Angry Birds VR and many more. Demeo is one of our favorite VR games of 2021 so far and managed to land the top spot on our list of best multiplayer games on Oculus Quest. The game launched with just one campaign, but recently released an update with a second — Realm of the Rat King. According to Resolution Co-Founder and CEO Tommy Palm, this is just the first of “many new adventures” in the works for Demeo.
Resolution Games, the studio behind popular multiplayer VR titles Demeo (2021) and Blaston (2020), today announced it has secured a Series C funding round of $25 million. The Stockholm-based company says the investment will be used to bring “proper live games to the industry and expand their ability to innovate across both VR and AR platforms.”
The round was co-led by Qualcomm Ventures and BITKRAFT Ventures, followed by Knutsson Holdings. Previous investors to take part in the funding round include GV, MizMaa, GP Bullhound, Partech, Creandum, Initial Capital, Bonnier Ventures and Sisu Game Ventures. Including the current round, this brings the company’s total outside investment to $38.5 million.
Founded in 2015, Resolution Games has been responsible for some of the most well-known titles from the early days of consumer VR, including Bait! (2016), Wonderglade (2017), and Solitaire Jester (2015). The studio later set its sights on developing AR and VR games for Rovio’s iconic Angry Birds property, and original titles such as Demeo, a recently released dungeon crawler RPG, 1v1 dueling game Blaston, and multiplayer cooking game Cook-Out: A Sandwich Tale (2020) among others.
Demeo (2021) | Image courtesy Resolution Games
No doubt a significant contributing factor: Resolution announced that Demeo has already surpassed the multi-million dollar mark in revenue and has “blown away records for time spent, retention and more.”
Resolution says it’s going to continue its focus on creating these sorts of multiplayer titles, or what the studio calls “live games,” which highlights the social element of direct user interaction and cooperation. The studio says the funding will allow them to continue development on existing titles in addition to creating more live games.
“Six years ago, Resolution Games was one of the first studios focused on VR and AR. We’ve learned a lot, worked in a time with limited technology, survived a small market, and have continued to think big-picture and long-term,” said Tommy Palm, CEO of Resolution Games. “We see vast potential in VR and that the market is maturing. We want to up the game and standard for quality to ensure VR users have the best possible experience, and that VR games not just meet – but surpass – the potential from what we’ve seen on other platforms like PC and console.”
Boaz Peer, Senior Investment Director of Europe and Israel at Qualcomm, will join the studio’s board of directors. Malte Barth, founding general partner of BITKRAFT Ventures, will be a board observer.
Osso VR, the creators behind the immersive surgical platform, today announced its secured $27 million in Series B financing.
The funding round was led by GSR Ventures, with participation from Signalfire, Kaiser Permanente Ventures, OCA Ventures, Scrum Ventures, Leslie Ventures, and Anorak Ventures.
According to Crunchbase, this brings the Silicon Valley-based company’s overall outside funding to $43 million. Its penultimate round arrived back in September 2020 to the tune of $14 million.
Founded in late 2016 by UCLA and Harvard-trained orthopedic surgeon Justin Barad, MD, Osso VR’s surgical training tech provides on-demand, educational experiences to surgeons with a focus on acquainting them with emerging techniques and technologies. The company works with industry leaders such as Johnson & Johnson, Stryker, and Smith & Nephew.
“After proving the clinical effectiveness of the platform and its unique ability to scale up to the millions of providers around the world, we are ready to accelerate,” said CEO and co-founder Justin Barad, MD. “With this latest round, we plan to exponentially expand our library and platform so that every patient in the world can have the peace of mind knowing they are getting access to the safest, highest-value procedures.”
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Osso VR says its experienced rapid growth during 2020 as it stretched to fulfill demand for immersive training models. This, the company says, has helped it to expand its offering now to over 120 modules across 10+ specialties, including new additions like orthopedics, endoscopy, and interventional procedures.
Fast Travel Games, the Sweden-based VR developer and publisher behind titles such as Wraith: The Oblivion – Afterlife (2021) and Apex Construct (2018), today announced a new investment worth $4 million.
Brightly Ventures, a Nordic early-stage tech investment firm, led the round, and includes existing owners Industrifonden, Creades, and Inbox Capital. According to data provided by Crunchbase, the studio’s lifetime outside investment is now over $6.1 million.
Founded in 2016 by industry veterans from Rovio, EA and Dice, Fast Travel Games has grown to over 30 employees in the last five years. To date, the studio has released four VR titles including Apex Construct, The Curious Tale of the Stolen Pets, and Wraith: The Oblivion – Afterlife, and Budget Cuts 2: Mission Insolvency, which was co-developed with fellow Stockholm-based studio Neat Corporation.
“We’ve seen amazing growth in the VR market lately with lots of gamers now realising just how much the VR space has matured, in terms of hardware, pricing and access to content,” said Oskar Burman, CEO and co-founder of Fast Travel Games. “With four games on the market, and several new in development, we saw our revenues double to 2.4M USD last year, and are well on track to double that again for this year. With this new investment we’re in a stronger position than ever to capitalize on this new gaming frontier.”
The studio says its latest round of investment puts it in “a strong position to accelerate its pace going forward.” And yes, Fast Travel Games is hiring.
VRChat, the popular social VR platform, announced its secured a Series D funding round of $80 million, which brings to the startup more than five times its overall lifetime investment.
The round was led by Anthos Capital, alongside participating investors Makers Fund, GFR Fund and others. According to Crunchbase, this brings VRChat’s overall outside investment to $95.2 million.
VRChat is a free app that brings together VR and non-VR users in user-generated spaces that can range from the mundane to the truly fantastic. Having celebrated its first taste of virality back in 2018, the PC and SteamVR-compatible app went on to include support for Oculus Quest in late 2020, which propelled it yet further with record-setting concurrent user numbers. The company now boasts over 40,000 concurrent users.
The company says the investment will “expedite development of a creator economy where members can earn, an enhanced social discovery system for more meaningful experiences, and expansion to more platforms. These enhancements will contribute to VRChat’s rapid growth and allow more people to access this virtual universe.”
Last year, social VR app Rec Room also dipped its toes into the digital economy by offering its creators real financial reward for developing on the app, which includes things like premium experiences, avatar accessories, and in-game gadgets. Rec Room also posted some pretty substantial funding, as its latest round garnered it a $100 million Series D and a $1.25 billion valuation.
This means Rec Room and VRChat now rank among some of the most valuable VR companies outside of platform holders Facebook, Valve, and HTC.
