Welcome to this month’s viewpoints, news and investment activity covering the next generation of computing - brought to you by FOV Ventures.

This Month:

• Meta and Snap reveal AR glasses.

• GenAI x Gaming and spatial computing investing.

• Distance Technologies’ $10m seed round from Google Ventures

• Flow Computing’s CPU put to the test.

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

Wow, what a month for those in our industry!

In case you’ve been under a rock, Meta and Snap unveiled glasses that showed that consumer AR wearables are nearly here.

For about a decade, Meta has been working on an audacious project: AR glasses stylish enough to pass as regular eyewear, and yet so powerful that they could one day replace the smartphone.

Meta has spent tens of billions of dollars on its AR hardware plans, and the company is not alone in its pursuit of wearable computing. Google, Apple, Samsung, and others all are working on AR glasses, along with Snap who unveiled their latest AR ‘Spectacles’ glasses.

However - while these prove that AR wearables are within reach, these are both labelled as being for developers. While that may not be great news if you’re a consumer, it is certainly good news for early stage investors.

As chipsets, optics and display technologies begin to move along faster, much of our thesis of FOV begins to take shape and come to life.

“AI as UI”

One of the big enablers of this technology has been the rapid advancement of multimodal AI. This breakthrough is set to accelerate the use case for AR glasses in ways we've only begun to imagine. Multimodal AI, which can process and generate various types of data including text, images, and audio, is perfectly suited for the AR experience.

It can interpret our environment in real-time, providing context-aware information and interactions that feel natural and intuitive.

Our portfolio includes companies like AI|Coustics who enable voice and sound to progress as the next interface of computing.

Similarly, with multimodal AI, AR glasses will become powerful tools for creativity, problem-solving, and collaboration. Designers can review, visualise and manipulate 3D models - enabled by companies like Graswald - in real space while engineers could troubleshoot machinery with AI-assisted diagnostics overlaid on their field of view.

Looking Ahead Even Further

With rumours of consumer AR wearables in 3-5 years, we are also fortunate to be investing in entrepreneurs thinking even further ahead than Meta's Project Orion.

We're excited to announce that we will be revealing more related portfolio companies soon. But significantly, our port-co Distance Technologies - who are working on glasses free AR - becomes the first Finnish company backed by Google Ventures.

We invested in Distance (read more here) because Distance's technology represents a paradigm shift in how we think about AR interfaces.

By eliminating the need for specialised headsets and integrating AR capabilities into everyday surfaces like car windshields or airplane cockpits, they're making mixed reality more practical than ever before.

The journey from concept to consumer product is long, but the future is certainly in view.

FOV News

Our inaugural Vantage Point Demo was a huge success, with 103 investors watching 15 promising startups pitch.

As much as we are investing with the future in mind, a big part of Vantage Point is cutting through what is hype and what is substance.

There is no better way to do that than look at how and where a technology is actually being used, today.

As part of Vantage Point we had two great conversations looking at just that in the realms of:

• Gaming and AI

• Immediate Opportunities in Spatial Computing.

We enjoyed these conversations so much, that we are streaming them live, where FOV and some of the participants will be active in the comments to answer any questions.

Sign up below for Next Week October 8th:

and October 15th:

Slush Minus One

​We're thrilled to host our annual, exclusive invite-only "Minus One" drinks for the FOV Ventures family, including our portfolio, partners, co-investors, and close friends. Expect an evening filled with laughter, meaningful connections with investors and founders. This year, we'll be joined by Wilson Sonsini, with more exciting partners to be announced soon.

​We're hosting the event at Allas Sea Pool, one of the finest venues in the heart of Helsinki, offering unique views over the Baltic Sea.

​Welcome to relax and mingle before the buzz of Slush’s Founders & Investors Day!

FOV Portfolio News

Recently we invested in Flow Computing (info), who claim to make CPUs 100x faster! Quite the claim. So they have brought in an independent academic expert with no ties to the company, to validate their innovations. Check out the findings here!

GEEIQ's latest report is your only source to understand the state-of-play for brands in virtual worlds and gaming today - get Brands, Gaming and Engaging Gen-Z here.

See how Ubisoft used Move AI with GoPro cameras to capture and create these 3D animations for Just Dance 2023.

Are these images AI Generated or real? Good things to come from Graswald.

AI|Coustics has a new partnership with news broadcaster, David, to help enhance audio excellence consistently and efficiently.

Don’t forget to try Makea Games’ Parkour Game Supermoves!

FOV Job Board

• Ailcoustics are hiring for two roles - Team Manager & Audio Recording and Engineering Working Student (20h/week).

• DoublePoint are hiring for two engineering roles - ML Ops & Full Stack

• Distance is looking for a Finance Manager.

• Move-AI is hiring a Lead Full-Stack Engineer.

• DoublePoint is looking for a Principal Machine Learning Engineer.

• Atopia is hiring a Senior Unity Developer (Remote).

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

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Thanks for Reading!

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