Viewpoints: May 2023 wrap-up

Your monthly summary of metaverse investments and FOV Ventures updates

Welcome to this month’s curated digest of viewpoints, news and investment activity covering the Metaverse, XR and Spatial Computing - brought to you by FOV Ventures. We are covering the main news of May, as well as a couple from June - the headset announcements from Apple and Meta. We will be publishing a deeper dive into the Apple Vision Pro soon.

We will also be looking at:

  • FOV News

  • Portfolio News

  • Funding and acquisitions

  • Data points

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

Apple enters the XR market by launching the Vision Pro, its stunning first headset. Meta responds with Quest 3

Many in the XR industry have been waiting patiently for 8+ years to witness their ‘iPhone moment’. After months of speculation on specs and pricing, Apple has finally launched their first head-worn spatial computing device, the Apple Vision Pro. In doing so they have redefined and rebooted the entire category for a much larger audience. We believe this is a true game changer and another sign of the inevitability of spatial computing.

FOV Ventures is the only specialist fund in Europe with a focus on this sector, so we're excited to hear from founders about what they think of the device and what they're planning to build for it when it finally drops next year. Hit reply to this email or contact us here.

Meanwhile, Meta pre-empted the news by announcing their own new headset, the Meta Quest 3. At $499, this accessible mixed reality headset represents a big leap forward in itself, albeit focused much more on a broader, younger and more games-orientated audience. Meta was undoubtedly upstaged by Apple, but let’s not forget that for developers, the Meta ecosystem is still where they make 95% of their revenue.

Apple’s entry raises the bar for Meta, but competition is welcome and healthy for everyone.

FOV Ventures & portfolio news

We’re excited to have made two new investments, one of which is somewhat relevant to the recent Apple news. Both are unannounced, but keep your eyes peeled for more.

Meanwhile, Petri travelled to AWE in the US, talking XR on an investor panel (login to watch) with Konvoy Ventures and the Venture Reality Fund. And Sointu, our Head Of Platform, was hosting a panel at Arctic15 in Helsinki, talking all things Metaverse with Nokia Ventures, by Founders and Icebreaker.

The portfolio was busy too!

  • Ray Browser received backing from A16z by joining the firm’s new Speedrun program. Watch out for demo day this week.

  • Port 6 rebranded as Doublepoint and announce their $3.3m raise, with participation from FOV Ventures, to continue their mission to reinvent human input interaction in the spatial compute era.

  • Ambient launched v0.2 of its open-source runtime for building high-performance multiplayer games and 3D applications powered by WebAssembly, Rust and WebGPU.

  • RLTY launch big new product updates including persistent spaces and galleries for its self-serve virtual events platform.

Funding and acquisitions

Credit: Spacetop.

The components of immersive technologies are critical for its development - and a few companies saw some interest over May. Imagia, an AR and VR lens company, raised $4.5m in funding. VoxelSensors, who is focused on 3D sensors for XR, raised $5m. Samsung Display acquired eMargin, who provides OLED microdisplays. The deal is estimated to be worth $218m. Meanwhile, Meta might be partnering with Magic Leap to help provide optics for its upcoming headsets.

Avatars saw interest, too. Copresence, who is focused on digital avatar generation, raised $2.75m - while GoodGang, an avatar communication platform, raised $2m. 

Other miscellaneous companies saw attention. If you want to get your sweat going, then Karate Combat, a premier league that uses XR tech, raised $18m to bulk up. MediView raised $15m in funding to expand its AR surgical navigation platform. Appear XR raised €880k to help with the product design process via VR. VARK, a Japanese live event platform, raised $7.2m in funding. And Marxent, a 3D content creation platform, raised $7.5m. Finally, one company that received a lot of chatter was Spacetop, an AR laptop that raised $61m in funding. We’re curious to see how it works when it is released.

Data points

Hiring

We have over 30 open roles across our 15 portfolio companies. Take a peak at just a few of them below:

  • Move.ai is looking for senior engineering talent in ML/CV, Python, C++ etc.

  • RLTY has a number of open technical roles as well as new London-based sales intern and Paris-based biz dev roles.

  • M-XR is looking for C++ software engineers.

  • Virtex is looking for Senior Artists.

That’s all for now. Have a great June, and as always, please do send us your feedback, comments, or any interesting new startups you know of in this space. See you soon!

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