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- Our Biggest Slush Yet
Welcome to Viewpoints, news and investment activity covering the next generation of computing - brought to you by FOV Ventures.
This Month:
Our Slush Recap
What is Gaussian Splatting and why you should pay attention now
Portfolio wins: Roro's €2.7M seed, IXI's 22g prototype, and more!
This was hands down our biggest Slush yet. We led with our annual pre-slush Minus One event with Google and KPMG - bringing our portfolio together for dinner before bringing in over 250 more investors and founders into our wonderful venue at Allas Sea Pool.
We also organised and hosted an excellent Female LP side event (more on that below) and collaborated with OpenAI’s Wulfie Bain and Alice Guo for an intimate session with a curated group of technical founders. Between that and our invitation to the exclusive Slush launch of Gemini 3 we were blown away by the accelerating pace of new AI capabilities and the fact that Helsinki was at the centre of that for European startups, during the conference.
Another big topic this year, even dominating on Slush’s main stage, was defence tech. European defence startups raised $4.2 billion in the first nine months of 2025, putting the year on track for record investment.
For us, the defence opportunity sits squarely at the intersection of our core thesis: spatial computing technologies that enable machines to see, understand, and act in the physical world have obvious dual-use applications. More on that here.
Case in point: our portfolio company Distance Technologies brought their XR Night Vision system to Slush - military-grade optics that fuse lidar, infrared, and thermal data into 3D displays. The demo drew serious attention from both contractors and commercial players, along with serval other interesting robotics displays.
Both defence and robotics applications share the same fundamental requirement: high-fidelity 3D representations of the physical world. Whether it's a military vehicle operator navigating at night or a robot manipulating objects in a warehouse, these systems need to understand spatial relationships with precision and speed that traditional 3D modelling simply can't deliver.
Which brings us to two announcements that Meta made last week -
First, SAM 3D - AI that takes any 2D image and reconstructs it in 3D with accurate geometry, texture, and pose. They're already shipping it in Facebook Marketplace so you can preview furniture in your room before buying.
Second, Meta Hyperscape, which lets you create photorealistic 3D replicas of real spaces using just a Quest 3, then share and explore them with up to 8 people simultaneously.
Meta’s Hyperscape Capture
3D capture has been a core part of our investment thesis for years. We see it as essential infrastructure for spatial computing - whether that's training AI systems to understand physical environments, enabling defence applications like Distance's system, or powering the next generation of robotics.
One of the key breakthroughs making scalable 3D capture possible is Gaussian Splatting, a family of AI techniques that can reconstruct photorealistic 3D from ordinary photos or video, delivering the speed and fidelity required to finally bridge the digital-physical divide.
We caught up with Michael Rubloff of RadianceFields.com to understand why this matters now, where the opportunities are, and how this unlocks the infrastructure layer for spatial computing and physical AI.
FOV NEWS
A new robotics movement is forming…
Something significant is coming. We’re not announcing full details yet — but those driving the next era of robotics in Europe will want a front-row seat. If robotics is part of your future…
Making the Invisible Visible: The Female LP Pathways Survey
Mid-week at Slush, our Female LP Side Event drew 150+ attendees with Anisah Osman Britton MBE moderating a powerful panel on pathways into LP investing. The conversations proved there's a real appetite and economic imperative for bringing more women into venture.
Our part in this is launching The Female LP Pathways Survey - the first Europe-wide study mapping how women invest in venture capital, the barriers they face, and what could unlock the next wave of female LPs.
This 6-10 minute anonymous survey invites all women in Europe interested in venture — from seasoned investors to those simply curious — to share their story.
Every response feeds into a transparent, open-access dataset publishing in 2026, available to funds, LPs, networks, and policymakers.
In collaboration with Tesi, unlock VC, Ada Ventures, Kvanted, and many more partners, we're building a shared resource the whole ecosystem can use.
Change starts with visibility. When we make the invisible visible, we make it possible for thousands more to join.
Read the full piece:
FOV PORTFOLIO NEWS
Roro raised €2.7M seed led by Behold Ventures, node.vc, and 1Up Ventures to build Hello Home, the first true 3D digital dollhouse launching next year, bringing gaming as the new social to an expanding demographic looking to create and connect through self-expression—the team is hiring to build little homes with big dreams. (more)
Spogen ai was selected as Startup Winner of the Tuottava Idea 2025 competition, earning recognition on the Nasdaq Times Square billboard and the honor of ringing the Nasdaq bell in Helsinki. (more)
Scenario partnered with Alan, a leading HealthTech company with over one million members, enabling them to produce 10× more on-brand content across image, video, and 3D—including 27,000 personalized postcards in 48 hours—turning speed and creative control into a competitive advantage. (more)
M-XR launched the Marso Measure 3D Capture Programme starting January 2026, offering 3D scan artists free access to Marso Measure with prizes including up to £3,000, Sony A7 Mark IV cameras, annual licenses, and Certified Scan Artist status for the best scanners. (more)
Distance Technologies showcased their latest capabilities at a private Slush event, demonstrating how they're seamlessly fusing visible, infrared, and thermal signals with pixel-level depth precision to power physical AI with superhuman visual acuity for defence and automotive applications. (more)
IXI revealed their latest prototype weighing just 22 grams—the lightest smart glasses frame in the world—featuring true-fit frame architecture that allows precise, personalized adjustments at temples, nose piece, and lens angle for all-day comfort, with the waitlist now open. (more)
Atopia partnered with The Metropolitan Museum of Art to transform two iconic collections into immersive worlds explorable for free in web or VR: Oceania featuring Pacific-inspired landscapes from the Rockefeller Wing, and Dendur Decoded exploring the Temple of Dendur's story through interactive chapters. (more)
FOV JOBS
Brainspark Games is hiring a PR Events & Marketing Assistant Manager in London, UK to help amplify their AI-driven educational games following their Dragons' Den investment. (apply)
AI Coustics has an opening for an Experienced Backend Developer (Mid-Senior Level) in Berlin, Germany to build infrastructure for their speech enhancement technology. (apply)
Roro is hiring two Unreal programmers in Stockholm: Unreal Gameplay Systems Programmer and Unreal Generalist Programmer (both Mid-Senior Level) to build Hello Home, the first 3D digital dollhouse. (apply)
Atopia Space is seeking an SDR / Outbound Sales Freelancer (Remote or Munich) to help scale their metaverse platform for arts & culture. (apply)
IXI has an Entry Level Development Engineer position open across multiple locations for their optical technology team. (apply)
Doublepoint is hiring a Senior ML Engineer in Helsinki, Finland to advance their gesture control technology for AR experiences. (apply)