vr investment – Page 6 – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

September 21, 2020

Osso VR Secures $14M Investment to Further Develop VR Surgical Training Platform

Osso VR today announced it has raised $14 million in Series A funding to further develop its VR surgical training platform.

The financing round was led by Kaiser Permanente Ventures, with participation from SignalFire, GSR, Scrum Ventures, Leslie Ventures and OCA Ventures.

According to Crunchbase, the Series A brings Osso VR’s overall funding to $16 million, with its most recent funding round arriving in June 2017.

Founded in late 2016 by UCLA and Harvard-trained orthopedic surgeon Justin Barad, MD, Osso VR has developed a VR training platform that allows surgeons and other healthcare professionals to learn and review medical procedures.

Apparently in the years since its founding, the company has celebrated a measure of success with surgical training programs worldwide. The company now says its platform is currently used by over 20 teaching hospitals and 11 medical device companies, distributed across 20 countries.

Not only does the platform allow for hands-on learning with surgical procedures, but it also includes assessment modules, which can gauge a trainee’s knowledge of “steps, level of precision and overall efficiency throughout the procedure providing a benchmark for proficiency.”

“Being on the frontlines as a provider gives me a daily reminder that we are facing an accelerating challenge with how we train for and practice procedures in medicine,” said CEO and co-founder Justin Barad, MD. “We set out from day one with a focused mission: to improve patient outcomes, increase the adoption of higher value medical technology, and democratize access to surgical education around the world. Osso VR has done so much in such a short amount of time, yet we have much more to do. With strategic partners like Kaiser Permanente Ventures, we are ready to work together to ensure that patients all around the world have safe access to the best care.”

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August 12, 2020

Varjo Raises $54M Financing to Support Its Retina-Quality VR/AR Headsets for Enterprise

Varjo, the Helsinki, Finland-based creators of high pixel density VR/AR headsets for enterprise, today announced it’s closed a $54 million Series C funding round. The company says it will use the funds to accelerate the global expansion and development of its XR hardware and software products.

Investors include Tesi, NordicNinja, Swisscanto Invest by Zürcher Kantonalbank, Lifeline Ventures, Atomico, EQT Ventures and Volvo Cars Tech Fund.

The Series C financing brings the company’s overall total funds to $100 million to date.

In addition to the latest funding round, the company’s COO, Timo Toikkanen, will be leading Varjo as CEO. Co-founder and previous CEO, Niko Eiden, will be continuing as CXO and as a board member.

“We are seeing tremendous demand for virtual and mixed reality use cases, particularly as much of the world continues to work remotely,” said Toikkanen. “When you combine the photorealistic resolution and accurate, integrated eye tracking found in our devices with the broad software compatibility we offer, the possibilities for creating, training and running research in immersive environments are endless. With support from our growing group of investors, we look forward to scaling our operations and delivering the cutting-edge technology our customers need to transform the way they work.”

Varjo is known for its enterprise-level “human-eye resolution” VR/AR headsets, including the XR-1 Developer Edition, VR-2 and VR-2 Pro. Companies such as Volvo Cars, Boeing, Audi, and Siemens use Varjo headsets for industrial applications including training and simulation, design and engineering, and research and development.

Since its founding in 2016, Varjo has expanded its global operations and reseller network to over 40 countries in North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia Pacific, with the launch of sales and direct shipping to markets such as Singapore, Israel, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

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July 29, 2020

‘Moss’ Developer Polyarc Raises $9 Million to Expand into AR Development

Polyarc, the game studio behind the hit VR title Moss (2018), announced today that is has raised $9 million to grow the studio’s expertise in augmented reality development in addition to virtual reality.

As an indie studio, Moss is so far Polyarc’s first and only VR title, but things must be going well for the studio as it has announced a $9 million Series B investment, which is atypical for indie game studios.

The investment round was led by Hiro Capital with participation from Vulcan Capital (an existing investor), and Galaxy Interactive via its Galaxy EOS VC Fund. The studio says it plans to use the capital to “add augmented reality to the studio’s core business competencies.”

“The thing we want people to remember about Polyarc in 40 years is our characters. Our means to make our characters the most memorable is to build a company oriented around introducing them directly to our players in person. VR, AR, and the spectrum in between, offer an opportunity to connect our players with our characters through physical interaction and emotional feedback in a way that no other medium can match,” said Tam Armstrong, CEO of Polyarc. “This round of funding was essential for us to expand our development focus to further embrace VR and AR games.”

Polyarc was founded in 2016 and launched Moss in 2018, first on PSVR, later on PC VR platforms, and most recently on Oculus Quest. The game has enjoyed consistently high reviews across all available platforms. In our most recent analysis of apps on the Quest store, Moss was the second best rated and the ninth most rated title overall.

Despite the game’s success, more than two years after its launch Polyarc still hasn’t announced plans for a sequel or continuation of the title. However they did expand the game with a free update in 2019.

Indie game studios with successful titles usually channel their revenue toward future projects and sometimes engage with publishers to secure funding for larger projects, but they don’t usually sell shares of their studio like you’d see from a startup.

That makes Polyarc’s investment announcement interesting, especially considering the stated focus on AR. While Moss has enjoyed success in the early VR market, the consumer AR games market is effectively non-existent by comparison as there is no consumer-available AR headset on the market. It’s possible that the studio wants to focus on smartphone-based AR, but that seems like a leap from their experience with immersive game development. We imagine there’s more to this story which hasn’t been revealed by Polyarc just yet.

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July 21, 2020

Company Raises $30M to Make Programing Industrial Robots Easier With the Help of SteamVR Tracking

In an interesting bit of news which shows Valve’s SteamVR Tracking technology used in a non-VR application, robotics company Wandelbots has raised a $30 million Series B investment around their TracePen tool, a motion-tracked stylus which makes it easy to program the complex movements of industrial robots.

When Valve first introduced its SteamVR Tracking technology (formerly called Lighthouse) in 2015, the company said it envisioned the system being like ‘wi-fi for motion tracking’, in the sense that any device could make use of a shared tracking volume—including non-VR devices.

Germany-based Wandelbots is leveraging the tracking technology for its TracePen product which is designed to make programming industrial robots easier and faster. The company believes that lowering the barrier to robotic programming will enable wider use of robotic automation among companies that haven’t adopted the technology.

The TracePen product is a kit which includes the stylus (equipped with SteamVR Tracking sensors) and two SteamVR Tracking Base Stations. After setting up the Base Stations and calibrating the movement of the robot by attaching the stylus, the user can use the stylus to simply draw the route the robot should take for its task.

Typically defining these positions would require remote controlling the robot and using 2DOF inputs to guide the arm into each desired position. With full 6DOF tracking of the TracePen and sub-mm accuracy thanks to SteamVR Tracking, defining the positions is as easy as pointing to them with the stylus.

Once the positions have been defined, the robot can remember and return to them without the need for the Base Stations (thanks to its own IK tracking), which means a single TracePen system can be used to program any number of robots.

Last month, Wandelbots raised a $30 million investment to expand its operations, TechCrunch reported.

SteamVR Tracking is far from the first motion tracking technology to be used for industrial use-cases, but its comparatively extreme portability and low cost make it uniquely suited to this application. Other tracking systems like OptiTrack can offer greater tracking performance but require more expensive and complex setups.

A first-generation base station. Rather than a camera like many tracking systems, SteamVR Tracking uses sweeping IR lasers and IR pulses which are sensed by the tracked object. | Image courtesy iFixit

The unique architecture of SteamVR Tracking is a significant reason for its versatility; most active tracking systems require the tracked object to be able to communicate with the thing that is tracking them. In the case of SteamVR Tracking, the external base stations don’t need to know anything about the tracked object. They simply send out a signal which can be be used for tracking by any object in the volume, without any ‘pairing’ procedures or any centralized host (ie: you could have several devices with independent compute tracked in the same volume at the same time).

Wandelbots TracePen also isn’t the first non-consumer application of SteamVR Tracking outside of headsets. Logitech for instance has created a VR stylus, which uses Valve’s tracking tech and is designed to be a more precise input device than the VR controllers that come with consumer VR headsets. Companies like Tundra Labs sell hardware which any company can use to build a product based on SteamVR Tracking, and HTC’s Vive Tracker is a general-purpose tracking puck which can be used to add SteamVR Tracking to anything.

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July 10, 2020

‘BoxVR’ Studio FitXR Raises $7.5 Million to Expand Operations & VR Fitness Products

FitXR, the studio behind VR fitness app BoxVR, today announced that it has raised $7.5 million to expand its operations and VR fitness offerings.

Following its first raise of $1.25 million at the end of 2018, FitXR has just added another $7.5 million worth of runway to its VR fitness aspirations. The total comes in the form of a $6.3 million Series A investment and a $1.2 million loan through a government-based UK innovation fund.

The Series A investment was led by Hiro Capital; the fund has also invested in VR startup LIV which focuses on mixed reality capture for VR experiences (including BoxVR). BoostVC, Maveron, and TenOneTen Ventures also participated in the round.

Available on Oculus Quest, Rift, Steam, and PSVR, the $30 BoxVR app is presently the company’s only product offering. It’s a rhythm-based boxing game designed specifically for fitness. Its track-based levels—which include punching, crouching, leaning, and blocking—range from the length of a typical song to longer endurance-focused levels going as long as 60 minutes.

FitXR says it plans to use its latest investment to expand its European and North American operations, and to “accelerate [the] launch of several exciting new products and services for people to keep fit in virtual reality.”

While BoxVR is currently structured as a one-time purchase (with optional DLC), we wouldn’t be surprised to see this investment used to transition the app (or its successor) to a subscription-based model to capitalize on recent digital fitness trends and the app’s never-ending replayability.

Competing VR fitness app Supernatural made waves earlier this year as the first VR fitness app to be fully built around a subscription model.

While BoxVR doesn’t have the same popularity as, say, Beat Saber, the latest investment suggests that the app is seeing promising usage metrics (like consistent usage and long sessions) that have investors excited.

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May 7, 2020

Vantage Point Secures $2.25M Investment for VR Enterprise Training Platform

Vantage Point, the enterprise-focused training company, announced a $2.25 million investment, something that will help them further develop their platform which was created to increase empathy and accuracy of retention through VR-based training.

The latest round of investors includes former COO of Deutsche Bank George Hornig, Quentin Clark of General Catalyst, Jamie Farrell, Shadee Barkan, Ahmed Haque of Trilogy Founding, Mike Bisk of Bisk Ventures, Samara Hernandez of Chingona Ventures, Dana Wright of Math Ventures, John Fein of Firebrand, and Bá Minuzzi of Umana Family.

The latest round brings the company’s overall investment to $3.75 million.

First launched in 2017, Vantage Point is developing a platform centered on Emotional Intelligence Training, which focuses on sexual harassment prevention, diversity and inclusion training.

“Through creating engaging and immersive experiences in a safe and simulated environment, Vantage Point educates users on identifying and responding to nuanced and high-pressure situations and identifies and educates users on implicit bias. Forward-looking, Vantage Point will expand to all areas of corporate training as the primary market leader in the immersive training space,” the company says in a press statement.

“Our goal is to deliver distributed Virtual Reality training in a way that is cost-effective, easy-to-manage, and accessible to all employers even in the wake of COVID-19,” CEO is Morgan Mercer says.

Mercer says the new norm of teleworking “will not be a transitory trend,” and that companies need to assemble more effective tools to promote “employee wellbeing and inclusion and bring people together as social and cultural dynamics change.”

Mercer, a two-time survivor of sexual violence, founded the company in effort reshape the way the topic of sexual harassment was approached while at the same time recognizing the level of empowerment individuals could be given through VR training.

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April 22, 2020

XRHealth Secures $7M Investment to Expand Its AR/VR Telehealth Platform

XRHealth, a Boston-based medical company, today announced that it’s raised $7 million in funding to expand its telehealth platform targeted at VR headset users.

The company announced the funding via a press statement today, stating that the new funding round was led by Bridges Israel, Flint Capital, and 20/20 HealthCare Partners.

According to CrunchBase, this brings the company’s overall funding to $15 million, with its latest seed round secured in late 2018.

“We are excited to join XRHealth which offers a comprehensive VR-based telehealth platform for healthcare providers, allowing them to treat patients both in clinics and at patients’ homes, making therapy continuous and efficient. This is a win-win solution for both care providers and its recipients, that became extremely relevant nowadays, as patients can get effective treatment without leaving their homes,” says Sergey Gribov, Partner at Flint Capital.

XRHealth creates applications to provide remote care to patients throughout the United States, something that the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has underlined as a clear area of importance.

The company provides a number of applications created for various use cases, including virtual support groups, stress management, chronic pain management, and memory decline. Additionally, the company is sourcing licensed clinicians to conduct therapy sessions using VR applications, and says its telehealth programs are covered by most major health insurance companies as well as medicare.

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April 6, 2020May 15, 2020

Apple Confirms Acquisition of VR Live Streaming Company NextVR

NextVR, the live event broadcasting platform for VR headsets, has been acquired by Apple in what was reportedly a $100 million purchase.

Update (March 15th, 2020): For the first time since reports broke back in April, Apple has confirmed that it was the buyer of the VR live streaming company NextVR, Bloomberg reports. Apple did not confirm the price of the acquisition, but earlier reports suggested $100 million.

This week NextVR’s website was stripped down leaving only a short message in its wake: “NextVR is Heading in a New Direction. Thank you to our partners and fans around the world for the role you played in building this awesome platform for sports, music and entertainment experiences in Virtual Reality.”

Original Article (April 6th, 2020): Founded in 2009, the Orange County-based startup broadcasts stereoscopic video of live sports and music to a wide swath of VR headsets, including Oculus Go, Oculus Quest, PSVR, and PC VR headsets such as HTC Vive and Oculus Rift S. Its unique selling proposition has always been its ability to let fans get close to the action in a way traditional monoscopic livestreams simply can’t, i.e. by letting VR users watch live events from the best seat in the house.

The company has come a long ways since it initially launched the platform on Samsung Gear VR in 2015, amassing over 40 patents and strategic broadcasting partnerships with the likes of the NBA, NHL, WWE, FOX Sports, Live Nation, and the International Champions Cup, and significantly upping its video quality in the process. The company has also previously sets its sights on six degrees of freedom-enabled volumetric video, higher resolution output, and augmented reality support.

According to CrunchBase, the company’s total funding comes to $115.5 million, with its latest investment, a Series B round amounting to $80 million, arriving in August 2016.

The acquisition is said to follow the company’s failure to secure a Series C round in early 2019, which coincided with a layoff of 40% of its staff.

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April 1, 2020

Roto VR Picks up $1.86M Investment to Support Roll-out of Rotating VR Chair

Roto VR, the UK-based makers of the eponymous 360-degree VR chair, today announced its completed a £1.5 million (~$1.86 million) funding round. Investors include Consumer Venture Capital Trust, Pembroke VCT, and The TVB Growth Fund.

You may remember Roto VR from the company’s 2015 Kickstarter which was unfortunately cancelled after it fell short of its £85,000 (~$105,000) goal. Although the time was seemingly too early in VR’s consumer life cycle for such a device, its founders, Elliott Myers and Gavin Waxkirsh, pressed on with their mission of bringing the rotating VR chair to market.

Roto VR is touted for its ability to lessen motion sickness with its motorized auto-rotate function, avoid tangled cables with its integrated rotator cuff, and give the user a measure of haptic feedback as well.

“In [CEO Elliott Myers] we have found an entrepreneur who has solved a problem for the VR market with a solution that addresses the physical issues encountered whilst consuming VR content, as well as significantly enhancing the experience,” said Andrew Wolfson, CEO Pembroke Investment Managers LLP. “We see future customers coming from both the B2B and B2C markets, in fields such as experiential attractions, home, cinemas and shopping centres. The company has employed a high calibre of people, and we believe that the business is well placed to take advantage of this fast-growing market.”

The company is slated to launch the consumer and office version of the Roto VR chair soon. Roto VR, which starts at $1,500 for the chair itself, is compatible with many consumer VR headsets.

Roto VR tells us they’ve since identified a number of market opportunities across a select range of industries in the out-of-home sectors, such as cinemas and arcades, and has begun developing “a range of products” in response.

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