With Vive X, the investment arm of HTC Vive, confirming a significant return on investments in immersive technology developers, the attractiveness of VR and AR as investment opportunities appears to be increasing
Quick read
➨ Vive X, the investment arm of HTC Vive, has nearly doubled the value of its investments in immersive technology developers over the past four years
➨ Investments in 3Data Analytics, BODYSWAPS, Imaged Reality, Maze Theory, Talespin and Vantage Point have been made since November 2019
➨ Investment from Vive X also sets participants up for further funding opportunities. Vive X revealed that 17 of its portfolio companies have raised more than $60 million in additional funding in the past year
The story
Vive X, the investment arm of HTC Vive, has nearly doubled the value of its investments in immersive technology developers over the past four years.
Investments in 3Data Analytics, BODYSWAPS, Imaged Reality, Maze Theory, ORamaVR, Talespin and Vantage Point have also been made since November 2019.
Vive X has increasingly focused on enterprise software, with special attention paid to processes, training and collaboration in the workplace, as well as the overall XR experience.
Citing research from ARtillery Intelligence, the HTC Vive investment arm believes that VR in particular has the potential to transform the workplace.
The enterprise segment of VR is forecasted to grow from $829 million in 2018 to $4.26 billion in 2023, according to Vive X’s reference to ARtillery Intelligence’s research.
Marc Metis, vice president of HTC Vive, said: “We work closely with our portfolio companies to help them operationally, and we see them not only weathering the economic storm but thriving.”
Participants in the Vive X accelerator programme gain access to education, investment and mentorship, not mention HTC Vive’s VR ecosystem of hardware and software solutions.
Metis said: “We will continue to invest aggressively, especially in the area of enterprise XR, where we are able to add considerable value as a leading player with deep market experience.”
Investment from Vive X also sets participants up for further funding opportunities.
Vive X revealed that 17 of its portfolio companies have raised more than $60 million in additional funding in the past year.
Indeed, Proprio, the surgical navigation company creating what one investor called “the most transformative technology in surgery since the X-ray”, landed $23 million in series A funding earlier this month.
Talespin, which partnered with PwC on a study that was a glowing endorsement of the use of VR to teach soft skills, secured $15 million in series B funding in March from learning and talent management software developer Cornerstone, HTC and existing investors.
Another Vive X graduate, Mindesk, was acquired by Australia-listed industrial software company Vection Technologies, also in March.
While the terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, Mindesk, developer of a CAD VR solution, joined Vive X in 2017, and secured $900,000 in seed funding two years later.
The attractiveness of VR and AR developers as investment opportunities appears to be increasing as the world comes to terms with the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic and businesses figure out how to continue operating under new, challenging circumstances.
Where will we see the next investment? Remote assistance is proving particularly attractive, as the $24 million series D funding round for AR worker enterprise solutions provider Librestream demonstrated.
As shown here, training and visualisation are also compelling use cases, with healthcare and industrial design just two popular applications.
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Main image: Burak K / Pexels
Source: https://vrworldtech.com/2020/06/29/vive-x-doubles-returns-on-immersive-tech-investments/
