Welcome to this month’s viewpoints, news and investment activity covering the Metaverse, XR and Spatial Computing - brought to you by FOV Ventures.

This Month:

• Announcing first speakers for Vantage Point Demo Day.

• How XR and 3D Tech Founders Should Pitch.

• Jobs and News Across the Industry.

Dave Haynes, Petri Rajahalme and Sointu Karjalainen (FOV Ventures)

Summer is well and truly underway, and with many taking a well earned break, for founders now is a great time to focus on tightening up for decks and positioning for the busier seasons.

Vantage Point Demo Day

FOV Ventures and partners are gearing up to present Europe's most promising pre-Series A startups at the Vantage Point Demo Day on September 17th. This virtual event will highlight European founders who are pioneering the next wave of billion-dollar companies at the intersection of Spatial Computing, Generative AI, Gaming & 3D Tech

Demo Day Highlights:

• Date: September 17th

• Focus: European pre-Series A startups in Spatial Computing, Gen-AI, 3D Tech & Gaming.

• Format: Virtual Demo Day.

Industry Roundtables and Fireside Chats:

Engage with industry insiders across VR/AR, 3D Tech, Generative AI, and Gaming.

• Confirmed Speakers:

  • May-May Chen - Strategic Content, Metaverse @ Meta

  • Bertrand Nepveu - Founding Partner @ Triptyq Capital

  • Troy Kirwin - Partner @ A16Z

  • Urho Konttori - Co-Founder @ Distance Tech & VARJO

  • Emmanuel de Maistre - Co-Founder @ Scenario 

  • ...and more to be announced!

Why Attend?

• For Founders: This is an opportunity to showcase your startup to investors who understand the nuances and potential of spatial computing technologies.

• For Investors: Discover and connect with the next generation of Europe’s groundbreaking startups. 50+ investors signed up already!

We are also proud that Vantage Point is partnering with Sircular. Check their superpowers below:

How Should Founders Prepare for Demo Days?

8 years ago we wrote a piece on How to Raise Seed Funding for a VR Startup. A lot of the advice was equally useful for any founder of a new startup in any of the ‘frontier’ tech categories.

With Vantage Point Demo Day (17th Sept) fast approaching, it feels timely to revisit, and update it in light of a ~decade of changes, and make it demo day specific.

Telling Your Story.

Pitching is a straight line narrative that takes someone from step 1 to step 5. Storytelling is an arc that helps others see the world you envision. Take people on this journey so they have the right framework to understand your business.

Part of this story is you're not just an e.g. "VR company" - you're solving a specific pain point for a particular industry or group of people, using VR/AR/AI as your tool. Begin your pitch by clearly articulating this problem and why your solution is 10x better than existing alternatives.

Build a narrative around data, address who you're building for, why it hasn't been done before, the challenges, and why this opportunity is unmissable.

Your Demo is Your Pitch. 

In this industry, a high quality demo / prototype is the crux of your pitch. The rest of your deck and presentation are there to illustrate the business case of your product.

One issue with short pitches is they can be extremely difficult for 3D or VR startups who are trying to build new paradigms for a new computing platform. For example, “Microsoft Paint for VR” would never capture the wonder of actually using Tilt Brush. But experience it in VR and people immediately understand it.

One huge advantage of demo days like Vantage Point, is that you know that many investors are 3D native. They will grasp 2nd order consequences in AI/VR/3D’s paradigm shifts that are changing computing.

Take investors on that journey to where we will be if your business is successful.

Focus on Your Product, Not “The Market”.

Getting a read on market size for early-stage startups is usually instinctual. The more disruptive your business, the more this is true.

Given the nascent state of the VR/AR market, traditional traction metrics may not be applicable. Instead, focus on validation. Show the experiments you've run to test your hypotheses and present data that foretells product-market fit. Extrapolate how your product might perform as the market grows from 1 million to 10 million units.

At one end of the spectrum many VR businesses continue to be cockroach-like in face of huge market projections, while Generative AI startups exist in an increasingly red ocean. Find your market. Fancy graphs and a bunch of extrapolated data points aren’t going to help.

Post-Demo Day.

Your journey doesn't end with Vantage Point Virtual Demo Day – it's just the beginning.

Network actively with other founders in the spatial computing space, establishing a small group you can trust for open discussions about your experiences and challenges.

Likewise, create relationships with potential investors even if you are not raising from them right now. People pass on earlier rounds that may invest later, or introduce you to more helpful people.

—

FOV Portfolio Updates

• Impressive demo from Move AI, whose tech keeps getting better and better.

• M-XR has developed a cutting-edge method for capturing highly accurate real-world 3D data, crucial for creating realistic assets and improving generative models in any engine.

• More playtesting from Brainspark Games.

• Makea Games will be at Gamescon (August 21st) + Supermoves, the awesome parkour showdown game releases 28th of August 2024.

• Google Maps just got a new insanely cool time-traveling AR feature.

Across The Industry

• Meta Reality Labs Q2 revenue are 28% YoY, still notably unprofitable.

• PlayStation VR2 price drops from $550 to $350 - sees more sales in one day than all year with price change.

• Meta announced the v68 update for Quest, features including AI voice integration and a first party MR app, “Layout” for staging furniture.

• HTC teases a new VIVE headset entry, a Vision Pro Competitor.

• Global Hackathon for Vision Pro Development, Vision Hack, Kicks Off Next Month.

• OpenAI introduces GPT 4o Advanced - an entirely new type of voice assistant that can create custom character voices, generate sound effects while telling a story, and even act as a live translator.

• AI cost to compute keeps coming down, with Open AI’s GPT-4o Mini. It is up to 60% cheaper than GPT-3.5, a big difference for startups on a budget.

• New research: Meta 3D Gen delivers text-to-3D generation with high-quality geometry and textures.

FOV Job Board

• Move-AI is hiring an Marketing Manager.

• GEEIQ is looking for a Backend Engineer.

• Distance have roles across engineering.

• Atopia hiring a Senior Unity Developer & a 3D Artist/Creative Director (Remote)

• Brainspark is looking for a Curriculum Specialist.

For a full list of open positions, check the FOV Ventures job board.

Happy Summer!