Text | Yao Lan
36氪 was informed that the large space VR platform “Immersed World” has completed tens of millions of RMB A1 and A2 rounds of financing within half a year. The A1 round of financing was led by Linge Venture Capital, and the old shareholders, the only capital and Fupu Capital, followed the investment, and the A2 round was solely invested by a listed company. An Yu Consumption acted as a long-term exclusive financial advisor. The two rounds of financing are mainly used for technology upgrade, content research and development, talent recruitment, marketing promotion, etc.
Founded in 2016, “Immersive World” is committed to providing differentiated offline entertainment experiences for a new generation of consumers through VR display technology that can realize spatial positioning, motion capture, and somatosensory simulation. Since its establishment, it has opened up key links from VR technology, VR content to offline space operations. According to the official brand information, as of the end of 2021, “Immersed World” has landed in nearly 100 VR spaces in more than 30 cities across the country, making it the VR brand with the largest number of commercial spaces in the world.
Relying on VR technology to provide a new generation of consumers with differentiated offline entertainment experience
“Immersed World” believes that the VR market is still in the early stage of education, and the large-scale VR bears the responsibility of the education market, because the offline space will still be the scene where ordinary users come into contact with VR technology for the first time.
For ordinary users, the threshold for using “in-situ VR” at home is extremely high. Limited by the home space, games carried by in-situ VR devices at home require the use of buttons to control the walking of game characters, which separates the player’s visual experience and physical experience, easily causes dizziness that cannot be overcome by the human body, and greatly reduces consumption user’s experience. The “large space VR” corresponds to the home “in-situ VR” and provides a new solution. Through the VR large-space software and hardware wireless solutions, users can walk in 1:1 space in the “immersive world” of more than 100 square meters of offline space, and have an experience beyond reality with natural interaction.
Chen Xin, the founder of “Immersed World”, believes that the technological iteration represented by VR not only allows the content to be expressed in radio dramas, film and television works, etc., but more importantly, it improves the content experience in complex scenes. “Now with VR technology, the user is no longer just a spectator of the imagination.”
According to Statista data, the global VR industry market size in 2020 will be 3.89 billion US dollars. As VR games and VR social networking have become new outlets for digital entertainment, according to IDC forecasts, the average annual growth rate of the global virtual reality industry scale during the five-year period from 2020 to 2024 will reach 54%. Not only that, VR technology will also drive the digital upgrade of traditional industries. Chen Xin, founder of “Immersive World”, believes that with the blessing of VR technology, consumers’ entertainment experience is expected to be further improved.
Create a content ecosystem with platform logic
Since its establishment six years ago, “Immersed World” has produced a wide variety of large-space VR content, including:
(1) VR Secret Room: Top Secret Archives, Biochemical Hospital, Prison Break 1, Prison Break 2, Touching Captain Jin, Buried Bone Tower, Fairy Island of Legend of Sword and Fairy;
(2) IP plot team battles: Legend of Sword and Fairy 4, Detective Pu Songling, Legend of Sword and Fairy;
(3) Shooting fitness categories: zombie siege, mechanical public enemy, master of stepping on thunder;
(4) Popular science puzzles: Space Savior, Journey to the West (Business Travel).
Variety of large-scale VR content
According to the official introduction, “Immersed World” has reached cooperation with a number of head IPs at home and abroad. This summer, the VR version of “Legend of Sword and Fairy 1” will be launched in its offline space. This is also the first time that the IP of “Xianjian 1” will meet fans in VR.
VR version of “Legend of Sword and Fairy 1”
“In the past, everyone started their imagination from the content of the text, and then went to TV dramas and movies. The iterative technology visualized the entire scene and then output it to the audience. What we want to do is to visualize the scene and make the form of communication three-dimensional. In this process, VR technology not only lowers the threshold for users to receive information, but also enhances the user’s memory and sense of presence. The boundaries of this change In fact, it comes from interaction, it will make you more and more interesting.”
Build a technology platform “FREMA”
“Immersed World” has built a large-scale VR technology platform “FREMA”, which can well serve the upstream developer ecosystem, downstream users and space operators.
For upstream developers, “Immersed World” provides a flexible and friendly programming environment, including developer SDKs adapted to mainstream VR development engines, design rules for content multi-space stacking areas, site space standards, etc.; for downstream users, “Immersive World” “provides a stable game service experience, including ultra-low latency and high frame rate rendering technology, multi-person positioning technology, multi-dimensional somatosensory technology, etc.; for space operators, the “immersive world” store operation management system ensures the existence of space ecology. sequential expansion.
FREMA mainly relies on the large-space VR algorithm immersed in the world, and creates industry technical barriers through the underlying VR technology, including patents such as virtual vision system and film control system. The opening of technology and content will help to achieve a win-win ecosystem for the VR industry.
According to iResearch’s “China New Era Offline Entertainment Consumption Upgrade Research Report”, the offline entertainment market reached 373.51 billion yuan in 2017, and the overall market size in 2019 was around 490 billion yuan. an average annual growth rate of about 15%. In the future, the entire field of pan-entertainment real consumption can find projections in the virtual world, such as script killing with serious homogeneity, escape room, KTV, cinema, etc.
Touch Jin Captain
Chen Xin told 36氪 that while “Immersed World” maintains its own platform attributes, it also hopes to use existing technologies to explore new forms of media expression, and to bring users different product experiences from the perspective of theme parks.
At present, the offline space of “Immersed World” is mainly located in the core shopping malls of first- and second-tier cities. In the next two years, it plans to develop large-scale digital theme parks and community stores that provide instant VR experience. Among them, large-scale digital theme parks are benchmarked against Disney and Universal Pictures. In the over 1,000-square-meter venue, hundreds of players can be received at the same time, achieving the effect of being chased by dinosaurs while wearing a headset, and striving to become a ” VR version of Universal Studios “.
Chen Xin said that the vision of “immersed in the world” is to become a porter of top imagination and to use VR technology to become a global super entertainment company. Community stores, shopping mall stores, large venues, and multi-player super worlds will fully cover consumers’ offline social entertainment needs and bring more imagination to the industry.
Investor’s point of view
Linge Ventures believes that large-scale VR can better meet the immersive entertainment needs of young users. Through continuous R&D and investment, the company has gradually formed a moat in content and technology, and has become the only non-hardware VR content distribution platform in China. . The fire of its star users will inevitably form a prairie prairie among VR hardware manufacturers and content developers in the future. Linke Ventures will continue to use its advantages in the upstream developer ecosystem to empower the immersive world to deeply build links between upstream content and downstream users, bringing users more extraordinary immersive experiences.
Zheng Lianfa, founding partner of the Only Angel Fund, said that the VR offline large space experience not only promotes the overall trend of offline entertainment digitization, but also is a powerful supplement to home VR experience and content. The only Angel Fund exclusively invested in Immersive World on the eve of the industry outbreak based on its judgment on industry trends, and accompanied the company to grow into the head of the domestic VR offline large space track. We are optimistic that the Immersive World team will explore more diversified offline VR experience forms and contents in the future, and further strengthen the construction of upstream developer ecology and downstream user platform.
Wang Junfeng, a partner of Fupu Investment, believes that with the popularity of the concept of the Metaverse in 2021, it also confirms our judgment on the demand for immersive entertainment when we led the last round of investment. With the rapid development of VR hardware technology, positioning technology and game engine technology Development, we still believe that offline large-space VR can well meet the immersive entertainment needs of the Z era in terms of experience. To this end, Fupu will continue to empower the immersive world and provide support for the immersive world in the fields of capital, data transmission, IP resources, and cinema cooperation.
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36Kr Venture State Investment China Network
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