vr investment – Page 9 – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

July 26, 2018

Supermedium Raises $1.1M Seed Funding to Further Develop Web-based VR

Supermedium, the team behind the eponymous VR web browser released earlier this year, recently raised a seed investment round of $1.1 million.

As reported by Tech Crunch, funding comes from Y Combinator, General Catalyst, Boost VC, Anorak Ventures, Candela Partners, Social Starts, M Ventures, Seraph Group, Taimatsu, Outpost VC, Colopl Next, Shrug VC, Andrew Ogawa, and Cantos VC.

Supermedium is a VR web browser from the creators of VR web framework ‘A-Frame’ and part of the original Mozilla team behind the WebVR initiative.

Unlike traditional web browsers, Supermedium serves up actual VR content to headsets, which is hosted on the web. Things like mini-games, music experiences, 3D models and other ‘lighter’ VR content types are the perfect candidates for now, but the makers behind Supermedium see a VR-first web in the future that will effectively render app stores a thing of the past in many cases.

To help this along, the team recently released Supercraft, a VR content creation tool built with A-Frame that lets you make a VR web page and then share it with a simple URL.

For now, Supermedium only supports Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, with versions obtainable via Steam and the Oculus Store, which does limit its potential install base somewhat. According to the Tech Crunch report however, the team sees the near-term focus on PC VR headsets more of a question of obtaining the best quality experience for the user, which necessarily includes tracked controllers, something that’s poised to make its way to mobile devices hopefully in the near future with headsets such as Oculus’ Santa Cruz 6DOF headset prototype.

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July 13, 2018

Facebook Spent Over $88M This Year on Oculus’ Seattle Area Satellite HQ

Image courtesy Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook

Oculus has been on quite the hiring spree as of late, with over a hundred positions currently advertised on the company’s career website aimed at bringing hardware and software engineers into the Seattle area. Now, a report from real estate analysis firm BuildZoom estimates parent company Facebook has spent over $88 million in Redmond-based labs and office space for Oculus this year alone.

To arrive at the number, BuildZoom analyzed 180+ filed, issued, and finaled (inspection-passing) building permits for Oculus projects provided by the City of Redmond, which includes 11 buildings across the city—right in Microsoft’s backyard.

An additional 72,000 sqft (~6700 m²) and a 200,000 ft² (~18.500 m²) leased location in Redmond haven’t been counted in the overall estimation.

Overall, the firm maintains Facebook has spent more than $106 million on Redmond-based labs and offices since it began its expansion into the Seattle area back in July 2015, with the $88.3 million of it spent in 2018 so far.

BuildZoom includes some healthy caveats in their estimations, which could put the final cost at a higher sum: building permits don’t reflect all of the project’s costs, and the quoted amounts are “minimum estimates and may not include permits for demolition work, temporary structures, FF&E, engineering, or other public infrastructure improvements.”

Additionally, the firm says the data “may not be exhaustive and is based on what has been made available by the City of Redmond, Washington.”

Speaking to Road to VR earlier this year regarding its recent VR/AR hiring spree, an Oculus spokesperson said this: “Overall, the growing number of job openings across AR and VR are an indication of the level of commitment that Facebook/Oculus is making in the VR space.”

So it appears Facebook is putting both feet forward as they continue investment in Oculus, bringing more dedicated VR/AR labs and offices to what’s quickly become America’s next big tech hub.

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July 12, 2018

Penrose Studios Raises Another $10 Million for VR Animation and Storytelling

Having announced an $8.5 million seed investment back in March 2016, VR animation firm Penrose Studios is adding another $10 million to the pile for its Series A investment.

Led by TransLink Capital, the round also saw participation by SalesForce founder and CEO Marc Benioff, artist will.i.am, Korea Telecom, Co-Made, Sway Ventures, 8VC, and Suffolk Equity. The investment brings the company’s total fundraising to some $18.5 million.

Penrose says the investment will be used to grow the company and continue production of VR content and specialized tools for building VR films better and faster. While Penrose hasn’t yet revealed any AR content, the investment announcement hints that the studio is also looking in that direction.

‘Waltz of the Wizard’ Studio Aldin Raises $1M to Fuse VR & AI in New Title

Waltz of the Wizard | Image courtesy Aldin

VR veterans Aldin, the indie studio behind Waltz of the Wizard and other early and innovative VR titles, has announced the closure of a $1 million Seed investment. The money will be used to support the studio’s next project which aims to create “believable virtual realities” by fusing VR and AI to push the boundary of interactive storytelling.

Based in Reykjavik, Iceland, Aldin is an indie VR studio which has been an early innovator in the VR game development space with its first two titles, Trial of the Rift Drifter and Asunder, developed well before the first major VR headsets were launched in 2016. The studio’s latest and most successful title is Waltz of the Wizard, launched in May 2016, which is a magical playground of sorts, with lots of satisfying item interactions to experiment with. The title is one of the top rated VR games on Steam, and Aldin says it’s seen more than 250,000 downloads—a success in the world of VR, though certainly helped by the fact that the game is free.

But beyond content, Aldin has also worked on underlying VR technology, like the studio’s ‘Ghostline‘ VR analytics suite, which distils players behaviors into useful data that can aid in improving VR game design. The studio has also developed its own VR locomotion technology called Telepath, which it describes as a “more immersive substitute for teleporting.”

High Fidelity Raises $35M Series D Financing to Further Develop Social Platform & Blockchain Tech

High Fidelity, the social VR platform founded by Second Life founder Philip Rosedale, today announced it’s successfully closed a $35 million Series D financing round. The company says it’s using the funds to continue development on its global infrastructure for VR experiences, to accelerate hiring, and to open a new office in Seattle.

Leading the round was blockchain investment firm Galaxy Digital Ventures, which invested $20 million from its Galaxy EOS Ecosystem Fund; new investors include Blockchain Capital. Existing investors Breyer Capital, IDG Capital Partners, and Vulcan Capital also signed on for the latest round.

The Series D brings total investment in High Fidelity to more than $72 million. The company’s first investment round was secured in mid-2013, garnering the fledgling startup $2.4 million in venture capital.

The latest funding round continues the company’s emphasis on blockchain technology, which High Fidelity CEO and co-founder Philip Rosedale says will be required for the future of a large-scale, decentralized VR metaverse.

“We will go to school, attend events, entertain each other, and build entirely new worlds together, all from within VR,” said Philip Rosedale, CEO and founder of High Fidelity. “To reach this scale and to deliver safely on such a promise, VR must be decentralized, including deeply using blockchain technology. Galaxy Digital will guide us capably in adopting that technology and creating the right partnerships with the larger blockchain ecosystem, for example the EOS blockchain where we are currently beta testing integration.”

High Fidelity already maintains its own cryptocurrency for in-game purchases called High Fidelity Coin (HFC), something the company calls a high-speed stablecoin which isn’t meant for speculators looking to hold for profit.

Avatar Island shop, Image courtesy High Fidelity

High Fidelity’s also maintains a Digital Asset Registry (DAR), which is also based on the blockchain. DAR is said to provide “indisputable proof of identity and ownership and strong protection against content forgery,” and is used when trading goods on The High Fidelity Marketplace—the platform’s digital marketplace for everything from clothes to avatars, as well as scripts and applications.

The company definitely sees big VR business on the horizon, as it predicts VR growing to ‘Internet-scale’, reaching 1 billion people and generating a $1 trillion economy of virtual goods and services. That’s a lot of income streams waiting to be capitalized on, and High Fidelity wants to be the main driver.

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June 20, 2018

Beyeonics Raises $11.5M to Further Develop AR/VR Surgical Visualization Platform

Elbit Systems, an Israel-based defense company, recently announced that its medical technologies subsidiary Beyeonics Surgical successfully concluded its first funding round of $11.5 million, which the company says will be used to expand product development and accelerate commercialization of its surgeon-centric AR/VR technologies.

Founded in 2012 by Elbit senior engineers, Beyeonics is developing its Clarity Bionic Visualization Platform, an AR/VR solution designed to provide surgeons with visualization tools that effectively replace surgical microscopes while allowing real-time integration of relevant data.

According to the company’s press release announcing the $11.5 million venture capital round, the Clarity platform is said to use what the company calls its ‘Transparent Head Wearable Display’ that utilizes a “unique Elbit Systems’ displays technology, 3D Ultra-Resolution remote sensing cameras, and a Processing Core.”

Elbit says the Clarity platform has undergone clinical testing since 2016, and has been used in more than 20 eye surgeries both at the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center and at Retinal Consultants of Arizona. The company also develops solutions for spinal surgery, minimal invasive procedures, robotic surgery, and tools for use in cardiovascular catheterization labs.

Elbit hasn’t specified the parties involved in the funding round, although the company says the investment came from “leading investment groups including an international corporation.”

“Having completing this funding round on the heels of Cyberbits’ investment announcement, attests to the commercial potential of our technologies,” said Bezhalel Machlis, President and CEO of Elbit Systems. “We are proud to have spun-off a company that leverages some of our unique technologies to materially enhance surgeons’ capabilities in the operating room.”

Beyeonic’s parent company Elbit develops a wide range of defense technologies including homeland security and commercial programs operating in the areas of aerospace, land and naval systems, intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance, and unmanned aircraft systems.

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June 6, 2018

InstaVR Raises $5M Series B to Further Grow Its Enterprise VR Authoring Platform

InstaVR, a VR authoring, publishing, and analysis company, announced it has successfully closed a Series B financing round, which the company says will help further its mission in providing enterprise customers the tools to create their own VR apps. The company received $5 million, bringing its total funding to date to $7.2 million. Series B participants include YJ Capital, ITOCHU Technology Ventures, Mizuho Capital Partners, GREE Ventures, COLOPL NEXT, and The Venture Reality Fund.

InstaVR boasts that its software suite can help businesses “quickly and easily author interactive 360-degree VR apps and publish them for all major VR headsets, as well as desktop and mobile devices with a single click.” InstaVR’s no-coding approach to VR content creation aims to make content authoring and publishing on multiple VR platforms a simple process.

The company says in a recent blogpost that since its release in 2016, over 30,000 clients have used InstaVR to publish 200,000+ VR pieces of content, with clients including Toyota, Hilton, TUI Group, PwC, US Navy, and GOV.UK.

The company says the new funding round will be used to expand the InstaVR team and further invest in the company’s enterprise offering, InstaVR Central, which is aimed at larger businesses looking for VR-based employee training.

“As VR has gained more widespread adoption, companies are seeing the value of utilizing the technology for creating impactful and memorable immersive experiences, such as new employee onboarding and ongoing training,” said InstaVR Founder Daniel H. Haga. “This round of funding helps InstaVR accelerate our plans to empower major corporations and organizations to more fully realize the benefits of VR.”

Businesses looking to try the software for free can sign up here, which includes support for Gear VR and Android/iOS Cardboard. The full, paid suite can output to Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Google Daydream, Gear VR, Oculus Go, Android/iOS Cardboard and standard monitors.

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June 6, 2018

InstaVR Raises $5M Series B to Further Grow Its Enterprise VR Authoring Platform

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March 15, 2018

HTC & Shenzhen Government Team Up for $160 Million Investment Fund

Between HTC’s Vive X accelerator and the VRVCA investor consortium that it heads, the company is already very active in the VR investment space. But today the company announced a brand new investment fund of some $160 million in a joint venture between HTC and the Shenzhen Municipal People’s Government.

HTC today announced that the jointly formed Premier Ventures is now in operation and working with an initial fund of 1 billion RMB (~$158 million). The firm plans to invest primarily in companies operating in the Chinese market.

While HTC had announced a $100 million VR-focused investment fund alongside Vive X back in 2016, the company confirmed to Road to VR that Premier Ventures is an entirely new fund. “The [Premier Ventures] fund will work closely with Vive X and VRVCA to identify qualified investment candidates in China and abroad,” HTC tells us.

Virtualitics Closes $7M Series B Round to Further Develop VR/AR Data Visualization Platform

Virtualitics, a big data visualization and analytics company, announced the successful close of a $7 million Series B round of equity funding led by investment group Centricus, and participated by existing investor the Venture Reality Fund (‘The VR Fund’) and other private investors. Virtualitics is developing a platform, called Virtualitics Immersive Platform, that melds AI and big data in virtual and augmented reality environments.

The recent investment brings Virtualitics’ total funding to $11.4 million – support for their ongoing mission to use collaborative 3D spaces and AI to better convert big and complex data into useful industry insights.

“With this funding, we will enter the next phase of Virtualitics’ development and continue to unlock the potential of big data through the power of virtual reality, augmented reality and artificial intelligence,” said company co-founder and CEO Michael Amori. “We’ve started enabling some of the world’s leading companies to harness transformative insights that provide real competitive advantage for their businesses, and we will continue to onboard customers throughout the course of the year.”

Centricus founders Dalinc Ariburnu and Nizar Al-Bassam, who led the structuring and fundraising for SoftBank’s massive $93 billion global technology investment fund, the Vision Fund. Ariburnu and Al-Bassam will remain on the company Board as advisors.

Check out the video below to get a peek at what the company is building.

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