extended reality | accenture

Thank you so much for having me. I’m doing very well, excited to be here. Yeah, let's get into it.

NICK: Fantastic.

DANIEL: No, no, you go first.

NICK: Okay, perfect. So we usually ask a little bit of a background to our guests like a sort of origin story of where they - how they arrive to be part of this immersive world and immersive technologies world? But, first and foremost, would you like to give us a little bit of an overview of your role in the venture reality found? What is your day-by-day job and what do you do in in the funding, in particular?

TIPATAT: Sure, sure. So the fund is really my partner, Marco DeMiroz and I. So we're co-general partners and we do everything. So, as a venture fund, you really do three main things. It's you source deals, you invest in companies and then give them support and then, of course, you find more investors for your fund. Like those are the three and you, of course, work with your investors, right. SoI guess four things really, but that's the main of what we do. But, honestly, most of my day-to-day is talking to founders and helping them, whether they're in our portfolio or not,

SPEAKER: Brought to you by Accenture Extended Reality. This is Field of View.

DANIEL COLAIANNI: Hello everyone. My name is Daniel Colaianni.

NICK ROSA: Hey, my name is Nick Rosa from Accenture.

DANIEL: And welcome to a very special episode again on Field of View. Today, we're joined by a really interesting individual in the XR investment space, someone who I’ve always bumped in at every single XR event that I’ve ever been to and someone that I really look up to when I look at the financing of some really interesting XR experiences that even yourself may have tried.

NICK: Yes, we're going to talk about ARCoregaming. We're going to talk about VR development. We're going to talk about the early days of this new renaissance of immersive technologies but, in particular, we're going to talk about how to invest in VR companies and what is the secret sauce in order to raise money eventually to become unicorns in the VR space.It's a pleasure and an honor to have the venture reality co-founder, TipatatChennavasin. Hi, Tipatat. How you doing?

TIPATAT CHENNAVASIN: Hi, Nick. Hi, Daniel.

FIELD OF VIEW XRPODCAST INVESTING MILLIONS, HOW TO RAISE MONEY AND THE POWER OF VR WITH TIPATATCHENNAVASIN – S1E6VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

PlayStation. They're on PlayStation VR, but also on regular PlayStation, on Xbox and also, on iOS. And it's really great like in terms of the creator community and how much interesting things they've done.And we've also invested in one of the most successful VR game studio, Beat Games who created Beat Saber. They recently announced they made over $180 million in revenue, which is crazy considering it's been three years since they launched. And they were acquired by Facebook over like a year and a half ago, Job Simulator or the creator of Job Simulator, Alchemy Labs, they're one of the very first VR hits as well. But, again, consumer and gaming is just a small part of our portfolio. We've done a lot of other investments with Wave, they are a pioneer in virtual concerts. But also, we've done health care. We've done education and training. We've done data science, life science.One of our companies, Apprentice. They're an AR solution for bio life sciences. They became critical during the pandemic because what they do is allow collaborative work and remote work for biopharma laboratories essentially. And so, this is amazing, but they helped accelerate some of the COVID vaccines. And the founder's mom actually got to take the vaccine that the company had actually helped accelerate and get to the market in record time.

we kind of view ourselves as one of the major funds in this sector. So we try to be supportive and helpful for everyone, try to give open and honest feedback at every stage, try to connect, try to problem solve. And me and my partner both have been founders ourselves and we know how tough it is. And when I was on my entrepreneurial journey, there were a handful of VCs that really were super helpful, even if they didn't invest. And I try to model myself after some of those folks who really like showed me how to be a proper VC.

NICK: And you invested already in more than 40 companies in the XR space. Would you like to give us a little bit of - drop some names about the companies, the most successful ones that you invested on? We know that you have a unicorn in your catalog of companies.

TIPATAT: Yeah, so we've been doing this for almost 5.5 years now as a fund. And we focus on early-stage succeed in Series A and we do virtual reality, augmented reality and artificial intelligence investing. And, yeah, like you alluded to, the first software unicorn in VR, a company called Rec Room. We were one of the first checks in. They're one of the pioneers of the metaverse. And it started with VRFocus was one of the first like viable VR social platforms and then, really expanded beyond that. They're now on console, like


got Unity. Started playing with that, built my own game company and really fell in love with this idea of like, oh, gosh, like we can create anything. We can do anything with these tools and that they were pretty much like freely available and it was just amazing. And then, really it was, you know, flash forward, I see the kick starter for Oculus and John Carmack was backing it. And anything John Carmack says I will listen to, right. And so, I bought the DK1. I tried it. It was a little rough, but it showed the promise of like, oh, my gosh, like something around the corner is going to be so profound. And then, it was really the DK2 that showed like the positional tracking and how powerful that was to engage that extra like sense. And that's when I was like, oh, my gosh, this is just incredible. I started building more demos. One of the early demos I built with some friends, Eric Bale and John Dudley. It was trying to recreate scenes from the movie the Matrix, but instead of watching the movie, you live the movie.

NICK: That’s interesting.

TIPATAT: You get to be Neo talking to Morpheus when explains to you that the world's an illusion and that you're really justa battery. And then, you get to do some of the cool scenes like dodging bullets on the

So those are some of the things, again, where it's just amazing to see the impact that these technologies can have not just on the way we play, but the way that we work, the way that we live, the way that we heal. It's really exciting to support founders in this category doing profound work.

DANIEL: That's amazing. Like that's where you are today, I guess, and that's the kind of like companies you've done. But I’m interested, what's the story to how you get to someone like or take me back to the very beginning, I’m really interested.

TIPATAT: Sure, sure. I mean as a kid, I kind of always grew up - born a kid of the 80s and 90s and I always had this love of magic and for me, like animation was the first magic I saw where you could take paper and images and create life, right. And then, video games came out and I was like, oh, my gosh, and now you can make it interactive. And so, I’ve always loved this like intersection of technology and creativity to create magic. And really early on, I saw this potential in what like would eventually lead me on this path of like VR, AR. I was animating just for fun. I learned computer graphics and like to 3D model. As soon as I could, I started like scripting little basic games on my calculator, then in the browser, then using Flash. I was really into like new grounds back in the day submitting animation there and, eventually,


worked, and that allowed me to speak to investors, but also speak to game developers, early VR/AR developers and really speak the language and be that bridge between the two.And so, then I helped set up the first VR/AR incubator. I was involved with the first cohort and then, I helped pick some of the companies in the second cohort. And then, left, had the opportunity to join forces with my good friend, Marco. And then, we created the Venture Reality Fund and we're $50 million fund based out of Silicon Valley, investing in early-stage VR/AR AI.We just recently announced we have a second fund and, yeah, it's just been amazing to be on this kind of journey and supporting these founders.

NICK: How do you see the industry changed across the years? Because right now, we are not yet at the big bang moments of VR. We're really, really close, but we are not there yet. But it seems that the pot is started boiling in in a certain sense. How do you feel the sentiment has changed when you talk to your investors about VR when you started and right now? Has anything changed since then?

TIPATAT: Sure. For us and a lot of the people that were like seriously putting in the

rooftop or the jump program. And so, making the jump program, you see Morpheus. Soyou're in the construct, then you get teleported onto the rooftop, Morpheus talks to you, he does the jump and then, you have to free your mind. So then you like - this is still controller based on the DK2, but you push forward, you kind of move forward, you press the button, you jump. And then, if you look down, you actually fall down 40 stories and then, you kind of bounce off the floor like in the movie, right. And creating that experience - and this was just a nights and weekends project that we didn't spend that much time on, but I somehow accidentally hacked my brain and cured myself with my real-life fear of heights. And so, that kind of showed me that was my aha moment where I saw, oh, my gosh, this is not just the next Nintendo. This is a new profound new medium that has the ability to do something unique, profound, unseen before in terms of how we experience the world.And so, my aha moment of this is going to change everything, right. And so, I wanted to be more than just a game developer. I wanted to really do something more impactful for the space and I realized like my super power at that time was, I was technical, I was creative, but I was also an entrepreneur. I had started my own mobile game company. I worked with investors. I got an M&A for it, so I knew how startup, especially early-stage startup


But clearly, we found those use cases, both in consumer and in the enterprise. And now, we're starting to kind of see it like it has tobe a combination of use case and combination of hardware at the right price and right function and feature set. And I think we finally have gotten there, like I think it took a while. When we first started, we're like what is VR? Is cardboard VR? Is 3 DoFmobile VR? Is that valuable? Is 360 video valuable? And we've kind of like paired away all of that, like sifted through all of that and now, it's clearly defined. Okay, six degrees of freedom, head tracking, hand tracking, on an all-in-one headset, like that's going to be the mobile consumer play. The clear winners of the category. It's not just experiencing things in 360, it's actually interacting with things and moving around and having that kind of spatial interaction, engaging your visual memory, your spatial memory, like all of those things are really what makes VR unique.And once companies have figured that out, then they're able to find that success. And really what's been interesting to me is like kind of just seeing like the waves of where it goes. I'll give you an example on the enterprise side. Like the very first successful big VR use case was training. That's what VR was originally developed for, right, like

work, we knew this was going to be a long journey. We knew this wasn't going to be three years and everyone's going to have a VR headset, right. Like we knew this was going to have to be - we were starting at the beginning of like the cell phone revolution or the PC desktop revolution, right. Like it took a long time for us to get there and we thought this would be at least a 5-to-10-year journey to get to where we need to go. And what's been really interesting is it got overhyped, people were expecting this to be the next iPhone next year and it's like when it gets overhyped, then you have that big dip when it doesn't happen overnight. But what's really interesting is during the VR winter, that's when companies like Beat Games made Beat Saber and they're making tens of millions when people are like, oh, my gosh, VR is dead. And it's like no, no, like clearly people are finding a lot of joy and fulfillment from this. And also, this was one on the enterprise side, like companies were putting in the work, doing the POCs, really finding the return on investment for these VR use cases. And we have to start from scratch because again this is a whole brand newmedium. We can't just say, oh, this is what works and let's just port it. And it's like, no, we have to develop from scratch and kind of find out what's really unique about it. And it was going to take some time to figure these things out.


TIPATAT: On the operational side.

NICK: Okay, yeah.

TIPATAT: Operate like so surgical navigation during the operation. Like so, this is very specific, using the tools to do the work, not just training and then putting the tools aside and then doing the work, but actually doingthe work in the tools. So to me, that's like really powerful, really impactful, it reduces the training time, augments the person, I think. And we're going to see a lot more of that. Ford, they've been designing cars in VR using a program called Gravity Sketch and it's not just training now. They're actually being productive and that's the real value. And kind of how this translates also into what we see with Rec Room and the metaverse. Fundamentally, I think what one of VR superpowers is, is it really democratizes 3D creation. So not just 3D visualization, but working in 3D, creating 3D, whether that's designing a car for Ford or designing a game level on Rec Room. And so, when we saw the creator tools that Rec Room put out, where people are creating inside the program, in VR, it's been much more accessible. And so, they have a much higher ratio of creators to players than like Roblox or like non-VR solutions. And so, that's kind of showing off, oh, some of that

training in the Air Force and we've kind of seen that come to fruition. Like it like Striver, Tailspin, Interplay Learning. They're doing great stuff in terms of like training people to do their real job better.

NICK: And Accenture.

TIPATAT: At Accenture, yes, of course. I mean, honestly, Accenture is like powering a lot of this and doing the studies that get the real ROI out. But what's really interestingthough is like the next wave was when people are productive inside VR and AR and doing the work in these tools and that's what we're starting to see. Ad so, it's like I'll give you an example on healthcare. So it's really powerful, of course, to train surgeons, to make them better, to reduce the risk, but what's even more impactful in my mind is doing things like augmented surgery.We have a company called Proprio. And what they do is you put on the headset, they have a pretty much like a depth camera, like a light field camera, that captures the surgical site in 3D, like three dimensions. Then that fuses with the 3D scan data and lets people - lets surgeons do their work faster, more effective, less errors.

NICK: You talking more about the operational side or the training side?


Publishing and PowerPoint, like no one knew what a font was, no one cared about these things. Now everyone knows and thinks about these things because they have togive these presentations and they have touse these tools. And in that same way, I do think that VR and AR like spatial computing will democratize 3D design and 3D communication in a meaningful way.

NICK: There is an interesting topic that comes up very often during the conversation that I have with my clients at Accenture, which is, yeah, we tried XR, but you know we've done a POC and we never been able to scale. What do you think it takes for any company to be able to scale XR? Because we've seen a lot of tactical experiences, but very little strategy behind immersive and 3D and XR in general. What is your take on that?

TIPATAT: That's a great question. And I'll tell you what we've seen from the companies that have been able to get over that hump. And, essentially, it's a combination of two things. It's one, solving the right problem, making sure that the problem is big enough, valuable enough. And then, two, it is a combination of like the right hardware and the right infrastructure software like business support for it to make it more frictionless. I think when the value

being productive, creating, doing stuff inside VR.

DANIEL: And, Tipatat, that 3D creation side of things has always been, I guess, a passion of yours.

TIPATAT: Yeah, absolutely. So like I mentioned, as a kid, I loved animation. And I used to do the drawing with my parent’s camcorder, taking pictures and creating like stop-motion film animation that way. But as soon as I got like a Mac and the early tools back then, but fell in love with 3D animation and started modeling. And I did that professionally. That was my job for a while, but then, as I kind of switched careers, I kind of hadn't really done much 3D modeling, 3D animation. And then, Skillman & Hackett put out Tilt Brush with Google and there's a whole slew of other amazing VR art programs, like Oculus Medium, which was acquired by Adobe and then Google Blocks and that really just opened my eyes to being like, oh, yeah, like gosh, 3D animation or 3D modeling is fun again and interesting and I could see this being more approachable, more accessible. And kind of like how desktop computers, when they had a GUI and a windows interface keyboard and mouse? It really revolutionized 2D communication, 2D design, like Desktop Publishing with like Adobe, but also, even with PowerPoint. Like before Desktop


the feedback I get when I talk to these companies that are like, oh, my gosh, like these are not right.

NICK: We have other competitors coming to the market, Pico announced the Neo 3 very recently. There is an announcement that is coming very soon from HTC and things are heating up on that sense. We know though that's the true Holy Grail of XR is to have something that is completely agnostic from the hardware and eventually something that will create a sort of capital of knowledge for companies that are creating assets in 3D and experiences in 3D. First of all, it's important to create a sort of an optimized pipeline for three-dimensional product and assets. So from design to training, to connected worker, to marketing and sales and post-sales, so you can use all those 3D data across all the different parts of the value chain. But there is this, obviously, this future that is in the cloud and is powered by 5G, is powered by Wifi 6 and it's powered even by 6G that already is in talks by a lot of people around in the market. Can you tell us more your take about this kind of future in the cloud and empowered by high-speed connectivity and low latency?

DANIEL: I also guess as well it would also be interesting following on from next point there is how that has an impact on the kind

proposition was, okay, they have to buy a new PC, IT has to support, manage and update a new windows device and then, there's the VR headset itself and it's kind of unwieldy and expensive. And then, you're like, okay, if you can get an all-in-one system, that self-manages itself, that you can like relatively easy in terms of device management and making sure it's up to date and making sure there's no issues. Like if it can be more of like an appliance and less like a computer, then I think you can get a lot faster in terms or lower that friction in terms of the bar.So I think the combination of the right use case and then, the right like hardware and hardware infrastructure supporting it. Like it's definitely one of those things where we've seen it, but the quest has been amazing for consumers, but it's been a little harder to deploy in the enterprise. Like I think it's clear, Oculus is doing what they can or Facebook is doing what they can, but they are primarily focused on consumer, not enterprise. And so, figuring out like those things of just like the stuff that Microsoft does so well in terms of device management, identity management, all this kind of stuff right to make it very easy to deploy complex systems and applications into the field. Like we need you know Oculus to kind of step or other all-in-one VR headset makers to kind of step up in that way and create that easy to deploy ecosystem.I see you kind of nodding, like that's a lot of


file formats for 3D, like all sorts of stuff that's going to enable all of that to work more seamlessly and to be optimized for cloud and streaming solutions.And so, with us and how we kind of view Fund II, 5G does become a bigger part of the equation and that's why we're working with Qualcomm, Orange, LG Uplus and other telcos to really figure out, understand and invest smartly into the right technology infrastructure backbone, but also, applications that take advantage of it and make sure that they work as we envision it, as we know it should.But I think that that goal of, okay, what does the next generation look like. If we're saying right now VR is at like the candy phone, like Nokia candy phone or Motorola flip phone, how do we get to the iPhone? How do we get to that next form factor that's going to be really mainstream in mass market in a 10x, 100x way? That is by getting, I believe, by leveraging 5G, offloading compute, increasing battery life, increasing comfort, all of those kinds of things that we'll get there and, hopefully, we'll accelerate it.

NICK: Sorry, Daniel, go.

DANIEL: I was going to say, I mean if you take then a company like Wave, which I know that you guys invested in, right? How does a technology like this impact one of

of companies that you invest in. And I guess what that means for those kind of companies that are being invested in based on the knock-on effect that hardware has?

TIPATAT: Sure, sure. It's funny like a lot of people are like, oh, 5G, why are we talking about so much? And it's like, well, if you actually look back at history, it's like 3G and 4G were so important for unlocking the true capabilities of the smartphone. Like that bandwidth bump up that allowed people to have internet on their phone with 3G and then video on their phone with 4G, that enabled really what happened with the smartphone. So it's like the plumbing that needs to get out there. And in that same way, 5G and potentially 6G will do that same kind of thing where not just increase bandwidth for richer experiences, but more importantly, is the low latency and this is the key. It's like how do we get from the big bricks on our heads – faces, to like smart glass or to like sunglass style form factors? And it's really going to be by offloading the compute into the cloud or into the edge and 5G will have that latency and that will make that not just a pipe dream, but something that actually works and functions. But what that means is there has to be an investment in new hardware and software that's going to enable that to happen. There's going to have to be potentially new rendering technologies, new


things like volumetric video and streaming that, so you can actually see the face of the performer, you have multiple performers, so it's like if you want to have a crazy boy band like BTS, all of them perform, all of their moves rendered for everyone, you just want to increase that quality. And another investment of ours, Epic Games. You can see where they're kind of pushing the quality of things like metahumans to create more realistic avatars and digital humans. We can see that that's very high bandwidth and to do that in a way that we can push that into more devices and have a group of people that look at that high quality performing. Like that would be a pretty big challenge and we'd need edge compute to make that happen.

NICK: I want to be provocative right now. Usually, when there is a problem, there is an opportunity, right? So during the pandemic, we've all been locked into our house for a very long time, one year and a half has passed almost, and we kind of see the light at the end of the tunnel, that is a form of a vaccine, but we don't know when trouble will be allowed and so on. Of course, there's been a sort of acceleration in technology's adoption. There are people that are saying that, for example, virtual shopping and virtual show floors advance something like 10 years in only one year, just because of

those members of your portfolio?

TIPATAT: Oh, yeah absolutely. I mean I think again it kind of turbocharges what they do. Like this idea of, okay, how do you create with the weight, you know, your virtual concert, that's some dancing right now and they're really focused on the social community and the interaction with the artists and performance in real time. So if you go to one of their concerts, you'll kind of see this where you type a message, it shows up in part of the background, of course, and then the artist can see that, respond to it, but then you can also do stuff like power up, buy gifts, send gifts, show like impact, change the visuals, vote on elements of it and then, even be part of like it's kind of like the Soul Train dance off, where they use the web camera and you can actually be on stage, on screen, with the performer. But what's really interesting is, okay, well, how does 5G make that better? By lowering the latency, by allowing more people to be concurrent in the same session, by again allowing it to be in more immersive platforms. Right now the Wave, they're focused on where the audience is with like flat screens, but they started out as a fully immersive system. And it's like they want to go back to those routes and they're going to need the low latency and the high bandwidth of 5G to make that happen. I mean definitely doing


limited availability and I think also too, they were stopping production gearing up for the Quest 2, but no one really knew that.And so, there is a sense of like why didn't VR take off during that time? Well, no one had access to the devices, like it was hard to even buy a Quest 1 at that point. And then, when Quest 2 became available, now it's become the best-selling VR headset, it's only been available since October, really like two quarters, right, and then they say they've already sold more than any other VR headset they've ever made. And so, you can kind of see like it's definitely happening, it just takes a little bit of time for it to get out there just because, again, it's not an application we already have on our phone. We have to buy a new device. And so, in one sense, it is happening in a way, it just kind of takes - but the way that like we think about things, we're like instant, instant, instant. Well, it's definitely happening as fast as it can. I think Facebook's been on record saying, they're selling Quest as fast as they can produce them, but at the same time, it is only Facebook. There is no other consumer all-in-one headset of that quality that's available now and that would help really speed up the marketplace as well.So I feel like the applications are there, definitely the user like interest is there, but it's just about getting more headsets out there to more people at this point for the

COVID because, obviously, people need to buy things and the supply chain had to accelerate the way that they're not only delivering things but also marketing and selling things.My question is the VR and XR space though and the social VR and XR space didn't catch this opportunity though it seems to me, right. So there are platforms like, of course, the Rec Room, VRChats, Horizon is still in beta and hasn't been launched during the pandemic which is kind of a missed opportunity from Facebook at this point. But nobody has been able to surf the wave of this need of connecting people during the pandemic. Is the problem of infrastructure? Is the problem of technology? Is it a problem of user experience? Is it a problem of, I don't know, people not yet ready to put a headset on their face? What is the problem from your point of view?

TIPATAT: So I’d push back and I would say like, again, we saw record usage of like Rec Room and VRChat during the pandemic, like massive jumps in concurrence and all that. But I will say, you are right though, it was gated for a long time. If we think about like you know during most of the pandemic like from March till October, which was like the most of the shut-in time, Quest 2 wasn't available yet. Quest 1 was in very limited supply because of it's always been in kind of


some of the numbers alone as well.

TIPATAT: And so, that idea of like people getting together in a virtual space, buying and selling things that they could use in the virtual world, but also, that they would you know take home and use offline. Like that's happening and it always kind of starts off as a niche and then it just grows into the mainstream.And I think what's more important is that we're seeing those like use cases happening and now we just have to export them into the larger mainstream by reducing the friction. And Office has done a great job in terms of like cost and hardware, but also, doing things like making sure the right IPs connected and it's like right now to have the right IP for the Japanese audience, but if Disney or Marvel wants to do or Star Wars wants to do it for their fans, they totally can now and they have the model for how that works and then they can take it to the next level.So I think the pieces we're starting to see kind of come into place and it's all just assembling it together in the right way. But, yeah, I absolutely see it happening.

NICK: Shall we go back a little bit towards investment fund and how startup can get your attention in order to get funding. What is from your point of view, the top three

consumer and for that kind of social experience. I think again, like the stuff I see that people do in VRChat and Rec Room is just amazing. Like I saw in Rec Room this was a little while back, but it's like that this was pre-pandemic, but it was a high school theater group. They put together a play of the Princess Bride where they built their own costumes in VR, their own sets in VR and then, people watched the full play in VR. And it's just like people are willing to do these things like it's so interesting to see like what's possible.And I don't know if the Rec Room creators ever thought that that was going to happen in the tool, but it's like, oh, my gosh, the creativity is just insane. Once you get a mass audience and they want to start participating, playing with stuff that they've created. And in the same way, like VRChat, they host this virtual Comiket, which is like a Japanese -Comiket is one of the biggest like amateur anime manga marketplaces, where people sell. It's just like a convention essentially, like the –DANIEL: Is that VCAT?

TIPATAT: Yeah, VCAT is what it's kind of turned into now and it's like

DANIEL: And VCAT was a VR awards winner for last year as well, who really proved some really amazing stuff that they did just through


sense, okay, is this impactful or not, right? And then, on the other side too like, and this varies between consumer and enterprise, of course. I think with the enterprise side, you can get POCs, you get paid pilots, like that's the most important thing. And for us, we're definitely looking for the ones that are breaking out of pilot and into full product. Like that's when it becomes really interesting.And then, it's also a lot about the market opportunity, is this a venture scale opportunity. Like there's a lot of good business ideas that just don't have that like high growth that a venture model works for. So I get a lot of mismatch where people pitch me interesting ideas that could be good, but their niche or, again, it's like it's set up for a great lifestyle business like they could make millions in revenue, but how do they make hundreds of millions in revenue? And that's also like a big scale.

NICK: You're talking about scale.

TIPATAT: Are they venture scale, right? And then, lastly, the one thing I would say too is again, like we've seen this like the most successful game in VR, Beat Saber, right. Like they actually didn't take any financing, they didn't take any publishing deals, what they did was they used early access, very smart. If you guys were publishers and a

qualities that a product or a startup should have or even a founder should have in order to be palatable for investing?

TIPATAT: Sure, yeah, and it's funny like the answers changed over the years. Like when we first started doing investment in the VR space, there wasn't even headsets, consumer headsets weren't even out yet and so, we really had to take a leap of faith and we really just focused on the team and the founder themselves. And while that's still the most important thing understanding, okay, the founder, their background, their expertise, their insight and their passion, but now, it's like, okay, there are headsets out there. The tools are free to use and it's like, who's actually creating stuff? Like when I see founders that pitch with this thing and I’m like, hey, we need X amount of money to even build anything to even see anything. I’m like that makes no sense. Like I’d rather have the founders are like, hey, we've built something, we put it out in the market, we already get the good signals and now we know we can accelerate this and put the foot on the gas. Like that that's a POC.

NICK: A POC or a build or something that you can show.

TIPATAT: Has to be something that we can tryand we can understand and we can get that


before, there is still a lot of gimmicky use of extended reality. A lot of people are coming with gimmicky ideas, even I’m having conversation with people, ah, so you can do this in extended reality? And I say, yeah, yeah, you could, but why? What –

DANIEL: Do you want to do that?

NICK: Do you want to do that? Yes, you can do that, but, yeah, what's the – quid prodest, they would say in Latin. Who's taking advantage of it? So at the end of the day, we are talking about the importance of user-centric design and user experience. So being able to solve a problem with the technology and using the technology as an enabler rather than a starting point. And then, making the experience as comfortable and as enjoyable as possible. So shall we say that, of course, you need to have something to show and if you have something to show, will be best. But if you have a really good design idea that could work too, to be invested on.

TIPATAT: I mean honestly too, like it's always about the execution. Like even if the idea is great, if it actually falls flat, like that's where - and that's why the demo is so important because we can talk about the same thing, makes sense, but then the way the execution is done do you understand

team came to you and said, hey, we've won some design awards, but we've never had a real huge hit on mobile, but we're a good team, we know what we're doing, we want to make a VR rhythm game that's going to have unlicensed music made by our CEO, 10 tracks and it's just single player. People be like that doesn't sound like enough of a game to really launch. But when they put out Beat Saber, they made you know 2 million in a month during the VR winter and then, that allowed them to expand the game, build on it, double down and that's when we got involved, was like right before the launch, but like it was very clear when I played the demo, like this was something special, this was something unique.And then, when we saw it launch and hit, we're like, oh, my gosh, yeah, this is like they nailed it. And what I really liked was, again, they're not trying to do everything, they just took one game mechanic and just laser focused, refined it, sharpened it and made it beautiful. And I feel like I’m still getting these like weird pitches from people that are coming to the space, they play the Quest, they're excited and they're like, hey, I need three to five million to build my VR game. I don't even have a demo and I’m like how do I even know the fundamentals of your VR game work. Like this makes no sense.

NICK: Now rebooting the question that I said


test prep and in the U.S. it's like the SAT, right. It's like, man, when I was a kid, my parents would throw as much money as they could for SAT Prep Classes, to books, to make sure because again that unlocks colleges, that unlocks better job opportunities, all that kind of stuff.And so, it's like if you could show me a VR application, didn't take people on field trips, but use spatial memory - like use the Memory Palace to increase people's SAT scores by 10%, 5%. Oh, my gosh, like what home wouldn't have a VR headset then? Soit's like if you find the right need, I feel like people are constantly saying, okay, VR could be used for this, this would be a cool thing, but it's like, okay, well, how many people really want that? How many people currently pay for that and is this a better way of doing?I mean the other area too that we've seen is like even if VR is a better way of doing it, if the current way is good enough, then it doesn't matter that VR is a better way of doing it. Like the current way satisfies the needs of the consumers enough that it doesn't outweigh the friction and the cost of adopting a new technology. So that's another area that I see people kind of stumble upon. I think –

DANIEL: That's really interesting because it’s definitely something that I highlight a lot

what it really takes to get it to that polished level where it works and it fulfills the needs. But I think you're right though, fundamentally, like what's something investable? And this ties back to a lot of things we said like scale and all that, but it's just like what's the problem you're solving and is it really valuable?

DANIEL: Or the need.

TIPATAT: Yeah, yeah, is it a pain point.

DANIEL: Like how much people are paying for fulfilling.

TIPATAT: Yeah, I’ll give a concrete example here. Like I meet so many education companies in the early days of VR, where they're like, oh, my gosh, education in VR. We can take people on field trips like anywhere around the world, how amazing is that? I’m like, hey, schools don't pay for field trips, like that's not something that like it's not part of core curriculum and it's just like - it's not a real problem. Like, yeah, VR can be used for that and it can be a great experience, but that doesn't mean it's a valuable experience, like there's no value in the market. But if you look at where people are spending, especially when not the school spending, but where the parents are spending, and they're like, man, they spend so much money on standardized


methodology for treating people, it only works for juveniles, for kids and people age out of the current treatment. So when you're adult, no longer works. And it's only like 40% effective.So for them they kind of found this way of treating people using VR where it's 60% effective, so more effective, but it works for adults as well as for kids. And so, now it treats a population that was untreatable before. And so, that's the bigger impact. That's more effective for kids. But again, it's a thousand X better because like there's no option for kids or for adults.So understanding really, okay, where is it really a breakthrough? Where is it really moving the needle in a significant way? Like that's where the real value is.

DANIEL: Okay, we speak at AIXR, we spoke a lot with startups. I think it's just the nature of the XR industry. A lot of new people are always coming to the table. Now, a lot of the time, there also seems to be between founders and VCs, there seems to be this disconnect or confusion, I would say, between the actual process that's involved. So I mean, you talked about, I think, what am ideal company to invest in is like, but what's that process actually look like for a new startup on the scene, a new founder from start like with nothing there to actually finishand investor closing out?

with people. It's like they think about XR and they have this product or anything like that, but I’m like, okay, but can you do it in real life and is like is there any real reason why you like difference to it being in VR to being in real life? And sometimes even things just like, oh, well, the person doesn't have to travel there, it's not really enough sometimes, I guess.

TIPATAT: I don't know I absolutely agree there. Yeah, I think it's also interesting too where people are like, okay, how can we - like is it cheaper, like if cheaper is just the thing that you're focused on, it's kind of a losing proposition. It has to be better. And I think that's like - and how profoundly better? Like you hear this a lot for startups. It's like 10x better is generally the benchmark. And so, it's like when you're focused, it's like, okay, how much are you saving? Are you saving thousands or are you saving millions, right, of dollars or how profound is this?And so, I’ll focus on one of our companies too, in the healthcare sector, they're a company called Vivid Vision and they do eye therapy. And so, when people ask, oh, isn't VR bad for your eyes? I always counter with we actually have a startup that actually uses VR to strengthen your eyes and improve your eyesight. And so, what they do is they cure people that have diplopia or lazy eye. And what's very interesting is the current


it's almost free depending on, of course, what type of startup. But like a software startup, in particular, it's not that much.But then, this is the important part. It's like, okay, do you do an incubator, do you do accelerator? Well, when do you talk to like institutional investors, like the Venture Reality Fund? It's really when you start to get early product market fit and that's why we're like, okay, even with a like demo or a POC, like we want to see again that this is something that's has shown that the users actually care about it, customers actually value it and that this is something repeatable and scalable.I think in the very first stage, early searchers just like can this even work? And then, you're like, okay, well, now will this work for 100 companies? Will this work for 10, 000 users? Like that's when you want to start approaching more institutional investors, when you need to scale. But I think a lot of people - and for a long time for VR, it was like scaling wasn't even an option. We just had to preview exist. So a lot of people were kind of investing in that earlier stage. But now, it's definitely more of that, okay, now that we have VR out there, now that there are publishers doing publishing deals and things like that and enterprises and companies that are helping put POCs together and really proving ROI. It's like, okay, that's not a VC's job necessarily to

TIPATAT: And, again, I think this is also to understanding your investors because there's different classes of investors. So there's typical Angel Investors or like friends and family first, Angel Investors, which are type of friends and family. Then they are seed and incubator accelerator or pre-seed investors and then, there's A, B, C and growth investors. So it's like you have to understand who you're approaching and when you're approaching them.And I think a lot of people I meet, they're like, oh, you're an investor, you'll just give me money. And it's like, no, well, that's not necessarily how it works. It's like make sure you approach at the right time and you're talking to the right people because it's like, okay, if you have an idea, a pitch, talk to friends and family. If you don't have a rich uncle or rich aunt, then you know you go to the angels. You go to angel list and you go to incubators and you apply to them and you get feedback and you kind of work that angle of it or you do what others have done and just do sweat equity and just build something and get it out there as fast as you can. Because, again, the cost to create a startup is so cheap, like Unity is free, all these tools, so many of these tools now are free. And so, it's like, okay, it's not like before when you had to do a startup and you had to like buy hundreds of thousands of software just even start. Like now, it's like, oh, my gosh, to start a startup,


the technology in order to consume the technology and you become part of the technology. So we are all cyborg. We all have our mobile phones with us and we feel lost without it. And, obviously, the next evolution is visual delivery of information.Now my question is another provocative question, obviously, we are not even yet at the big bang year of or the iPhone moment for XR right now. Do you see - where is the next step is it Neuralink the next step? What is the next step?

TIPATAT: No, no, I don't think it's Neuralink. I mean I do think that is a future step, but I don't think that's necessary to get to the big bang moment. Like for me, when I think about this, I think less about the technologyand I think more about the applications and the value that it provides for people. And so, for me, I think specifically about the journey of computers. And when it started like with big mainframes right and they were good for computational problems for math problems, science, you know, NASA was using it to send people to space. But thinking, okay, very few people had them, very people had access to them, very few people used them. Then once it evolved into the personal computer, then like we talked about, it democratized 2D communication and 2D thinking. The keyboard and mouse

help get you to that stage, but it's to get you to what comes next.

NICK: In one of the decks that I prepared to pitch why XR is important, why AR and VR are important, there is a diagram of the evolution of consumption of data and media. And it starts with a cinema, so you have a big roomand the consumption is public, you have togo to a location in order to consume the – see the news as during the time of World War I, World War II and I mean it's something that is not real time. So it's kind of delayed compared to what's happening in the world and so on.And then, after that, of course, you have the evolution with more intimate consumption. The first TV sets arrive in houses, especially in the United States in the mid-1950s. And television and media become like a more sort of a cultural thing that you can discuss with your friends and people and family and so on. And then, after that, of course, you have another jump and we're talking about the personal computer, where you have a fixed desk where you can go and the information is personal, is in real time and you have the internet, you can communicate with everyone in the world with IE or email or you check your website. And then, you have the personal computer where we switch from being disconnected with the technology. So you have to move to


natural as the real world. That's going to lower the barriers to allow everyone to be productive in the digital economy and that's impactful for everyone.And so, I think that's what's really excitingand powerful for me. This idea of saying, hey, you know what, like we see this, it's like the digital divide is a huge problem and the digital economy is infinite. Like it's only limited by our imagination, it's not limited by atoms and molecules like the real worldeconomy and the real world markets. And so, if we get more people being part of the digital economy, I think that's going to benefit everyone. That's going to unlock economic opportunity on a scale we've never seen before because if we can get the rest of three to five billion people that aren't part of the digital economy participating then, yeah, like that's the game.And this is going to be like a little strange, but this all ties back into this idea of the metaverse and why is the metaverse powerful? But you think about what the metaverse represents, this idea that we live a digital life. It's the next evolution of the internet, of social interaction, but it's not just playing games. But more importantly, you see this already with like Roblox. Like kids are paying for their college tuitions by making Roblox experiences that other people pay for. And that's the fundamental -

with Office with Excel and PowerPoint and Word, in particular. Like that changed everything and that just allowed more people to access and to be part of this digital economy, digital revolution.But you think about it and you're like, well, how many people still use - are part of the digital economy, are productive in a computer? And if you just look at sales, you're like, okay, it's like two to three billion PCs and laptops are sold. And then, it's like, well, the smartphone revolution what happened there was it didn't - it wasn't a productivity device. It was a communication device and everyone needs to communicate. And so, then it becomes like a bigger part of everyone's lives. And so, now 9 billion cellphones, more cell phones than the population of the world.

NICK: It goes down to a deeper level of needs of humans and the connection, right?

TIPATAT: Yes, but what I think is really interesting is what VR can do and AR, like spatial computing, is it can like just like how 2D communication broadened the mouse as an interface and windows as a metaphor, allowed more people that weren't like thinking about punch cards, allowed more people to access the computer. VR/AR is a natural interface that works with the way that we live life. It makes the digital world as


those friction points.I think that's my difficulty with XR as well is like I think there's a lot of stuff that we can do with it, a lot of ambition, a lot of kind of people working really cool things, but I think I’m personally I’m waiting for some of those friction points that just getting in and out of XR. For me, at the moment that goes and the moment I can just slide into XR just like that, that’s a win-win and I don't have any problems after that.

TIPATAT: If I were to say to you, again, like I won't say, so if I can go to someone that says, hey, you're making minimum wage right now, if I could offer you an 80,000 job, double your salary and double your life, with the current VR/AR tech and how much of a pain it is to use right now, don't you think they would take it? They would absolutely take it. And if you think about it, you're like, okay, well, if someone's creating something in a Roblox and people are paying, and again, it's a small amount people actually making significant amount of money, but that's like every creator community. But that promise is there, like that that future is very seeable now. And to say, hey, if it didn't feel like and I'll take 3D modeling because I’m very familiar with it, but if 3D modeling felt less like I was doing CAD and pressing buttons and more like I was playing with

for me, that's the biggest change or the biggest shift is like when we can get more people creating digital things in the digital world that other people enjoy and will pay for, like that's when we have a real metaverse.And that's when we've really unlocked the power of this kind of spatial computing. And like I said, with Rec Room they're already kind of showing, XR enables more creators and if we can monetize, if they can monetize, if you can have a job in VR using a VR headset like why wouldn't you adopt one. And if it's a better job than you would currently get because it makes more sense, it's not programming, it's no code, it's much easier to use, it feels like the natural world. Yeah, I think that's a huge victory.

DANIEL: That means a lot of it is based around what the creativity that can come from this. I think it's really interesting because I think like we were having this discussion even as a team and like with people that we work with and it's all about this discussion on, well, for this is that for this to be an industry that we can all say, okay, is a space that –well, it is going to be around for all of us and we all want to be able to use. It's about having that native ability, the ability to be able to say, okay, I can use this in my everyday life, this is something that doesn't - it's something very easy to slip into, it’s something very - I guess simple as well. And it's not really like any of


TIPATAT: I love dreams. I mean me and Marco have been a fan of since Little Big Planet and every game they've done has just been beautifully designed, beautifully crafted and the tech has been unbelievable. But I think the big miss at one level and it's tough because they've been working on this for so long, but it's like social. Social is the big thing. Like that's what makes it valuable, especially real time. And you look at Roblox, like - and I don't want to unfairly pick on Roblox, but you look at the visual quality, like for people that don't play Roblox, when they look at Roblox, they’re like what is this? But for people that play, it's amazing, it's beautiful, it's fun, it's fantastic.I mean I think people could make the same arguments about Minecraft back in the day, where it's like, okay, what's really interestingis having that social community, having people real time interacting with it, seeing what you're doing and being there with them, explaining it with them, like that's what the real value is. And where I think Rec Room really succeeds is in that social element where it's a great social experience, especially by adding like you're building inside the application and this is what really differentiates it from something like a Roblox, where you're building inside the game. You're not building an external tool

Legos. Like, man, so many more people could do that and it's so much more approachable, accessible and potentially valuable in a metaverse.

DANIEL: Yeah, that’s really interesting.

TIPATAT: Did I blow your mind, Nick? You seem like –

NICK: Nick’s just sitting there.

TIPATAT: I finally like –

NICK: No, I’m fascinated by the concept of user-generated content. We discussed - we usually have a pre-call before recording our podcast and both me and you, Tipatat, are our ARCore gamer and we discussed about the beauty of creation that has been made by the Sony PlayStation Studios. This is called Dreams. And how the interface is amazingand the game is wonderful, but it's kind of fading away and losing this kind of amazing opportunity of become like a phenomenon like Rec Room or like Roblox and so on. What is necessary for you, for the to the recipe, to head to this magic recipe of user generated content experience to be successful, like Rec Room, which is again, we remind to everyone that is watching this this podcast is the first software unicorn in the VR industry, that you invested on?


and bigger. And so, they've gradually built over time this really fantastic thing, working with the community, listening to them and growing the community. And I think that's a combination of their smarts, their talents and their ambitions and it's really worked well.

NICK: So shall we say that’s a piece of advice for everyone that wants to build a UGC based experience in VR or any other kind of game, uh should have an initial story driven or eventually like sort of a tutorial or something that will show the technology, so that other people can build on top of that example?

TIPATAT: I would push back to you. I wouldn't say a story or tutorial because Dreams has that and it's actually pretty cool, like the Dreams like intro thing, it's very well done. It's very polished. But I think having a core game like Little Big Planet, was like its core game and like people play that, it was fun and they're like, okay, now I want to change that up. I felt like when you play Dreams and it's all right, we're going go deep into Dreams now, what was it like arts Dream where like the musician piece. It's like a beautiful, fun, interactive experience, but it's not something that you want to mod and like riff off of. You're like, okay, like that was cool, but I don't know what to do with that.

and bringing it in. You're building in the game, but you can also build socially. So your friends can be there at the same time and you guys can be collaborating and working on something together, like that's really powerfuland impacting. But the other thing I think that Rec Room did really, really well was they didn't launch with UGC. Like I think so many tool makers and so many like metaverse people have said this. So it's like bring out the tools, let people figure it out. And it's like, well, you really need that first party content to make it sticky, to really showcase what the tools can do, what types of experiences you have and that those experiences are valuable, have good retention, that people want to come back and play it day and day.So I think once you have that foundation, then you can build on top of it, you can add UGC and let people start modding. Because I think, again, it's like a blank canvas problem, like if its infinite, people get stuck. So only a very small subset of creators will like really tackle that. But if it's mods, and you're saying, okay, well, here's a cool game, oh, but I'd like to customize it, I'd like to maybe change some of the levels, maybe change like some of the appearances or maybe what weapons you can use, like that's like the gateway into UGC. And I think Rec Room did a beautiful job of having like three or four core experiences that then people start remixing and playing with and then, people start going even crazier


enabling technologies that would unlock that. And we actually even did a hardware company, Varjo, that's building this world-class enterprise headset that if you've tried it, you're like this is the headset from the future.And so, understanding like we're going do that and do more of all of that and hopefully, in a bigger way. And, hopefully, we'll fund the next group of VR/AR/AI unicorns. I think that's kind of what we're hoping to do.

NICK: Do you think that there is still space for -sorry, to interrupt - do you think that there is still space for hardware breakthrough in the XR space? I mean it seems to me that the big companies are kind of owning a lot of patents and technology and knowledge and all the big names in the industry, John Carmack and so on. So do you think that there is still someone in a little garage that is building the headset of the future?

TIPATAT: Absolutely. And, again, there's so many different ways that innovation takes place. Like again, it's understanding there's going be like - especially on AR. Like with VR, yeah, okay, it's much more commodified, much more solidified, what a good VR headset should be. But in terms of AR, like when you try even the latest and the best of like the HoloLens 2 and all these

And so, it's like again, I think with Rec Room where they build a paintball game and that's cool. And then, people are like, okay, I'd like to change the levels and it's like, oh, that's an easy way to kind of get into it. Because you have a core game that already is sticky, that already people love playing and you kind of build on top of that as opposed to saying, hey, we're going show you something, a tutorial or a stream that's really cool, really amazing, but isn't the actual game experience that most people are going to be doing and building off of. I think that's a disconnect.

DANIEL: There's so much I really want to unpack here, but I know that we're kind of running out of time a little bit. But I guess like just to sort of finish things off a little bit is, obviously, you've launched the next kind of version of your fund, you're kind of the VR Fund II, going forward, what kind of companies can we expect to see within that kind of portfolio?

TIPATAT: Oh, gosh, I mean honestly, I think with this fund, hopefully, again, we're always looking for driver applications. What's going to make this VR/AR spatial future happen sooner rather than later? I think, again, with the first fund, it was a lot of applications, like driver applications, whether they're the best games or the best enterprise applications, but we also did computer vision and deep tech


DANIEL: And for those of you that want to actually learn more about that Varjo kind of product and Fund investment, we've got another Field of View episode with Jussi, you’ll see from Varjo, talking about that in a lot more detail as well.

NICK: Tipatat, thank you so much for being with us. This has been incredibly interesting and very entertaining I have to say. We didn't have much time to talk about our common passion of gaming, but maybe for the next podcast, so we could deep dive into our core gaming and VR gaming. Thank you so much for this.

TIPATAT: Yeah, thank you and happy to do anytime. This was an honor and I really enjoyed the conversation.

DANIEL: I was going to say, I had to put a pause on things because there's so much I wanted to unpack. We could do a whole deep dive just going into the social aspect of XR and what drives those things. You can go deep dive into what makes an ideal investor compared to we talk a lot about what's an ideal founder, but what's an ideal investor as well? All of these things. So many aspects to it.

TIPATAT: Yeah, I mean I have so many opinions on all of that, but definitely please,

others, they are amazing technology, but there's so much work that needs to be done on the optics, on the input and it's just like this is the whole thing of startups. It's like there's some innovation or some breakthrough that's done at small companies that can't be done at larger companies because they can move faster or they can be more experimental, there's less on the line. They don't have the resources, but we see this time and time again. And eventually, they'll probably have to team up with the larger companies to bring it to the market, but, gosh, we have a huge laundry list. And what I used to love was that the Oculus or Facebook Connects, it was like Michael Abrash would come out and say, okay, this is what we have, this is what we need to do, this is how long we think it's going take given the state of the art. And then, it's like, okay, then you'll meet this crazy company from Israel saying, okay, we can do better than that and we can do that next year or something. And that's the excitement of being in this space and saying, okay, yeah, yeah, I mean given time and resources the big companies will get us there. Okay, but we're going to find these innovative startups that are going to zig while others zag, use more experimental technologies, put together things that other people haven't even heard of yet that are coming out of some academic lab and then, boom, it's going be this game changer.


being able to follow socials on Twitter or Facebook or any of those platforms as well and LinkedIn. Our LinkedIn is not as much as a mess as Tipatat’s. So we're okay there. And, yeah, I mean aside from that, is there anything else you want to say, Nick?

NICK: Yeah, let's get connected. Nicola Rosa @NicolaRosa on Twitter, N-I-C-O-L-A-R-O-S-A, you can find me there and on LinkedIn as well. Please follow all the activities that we're having on immersive learning and Accenture.com. We're having some amazing stuff to show everything that is related to extended reality. Thank you so much, Daniel. Thank you so much, Tipatat. And we'll see you on the next episode. Thank you.

SPEAKER: Through accessible insights, a solid network of support and recognizing truly outstanding achievements near or far, big or small, we're in this together. AIXR.

if you're a startup, honestly too, like we're open to talking at any stage like even at the precede, if you just want feedback and advice. We won't probably write you that check, but we'll give you some feedback and we'll try to be as helpful as we can. So reach out to me, I’m at active on Twitter Tipatat, T-I-P-A-T-A-T @thevrfund.com you can reach out to me over email. Don't reach out to me on LinkedIn because LinkedIn is a mess. But, yeah, definitely. Thanks again for this opportunity guys I really enjoy talking with you guys both and great questions and honestly, I could talk for days about any of these things. And maybe next time too, if you want to deep dive on a subject, I could bring some of the portfolio companies and they can talk too because they're the ones that are actually doing it.

NICK: Let’s definitely do part two.

DANIEL: Alright, sounds good. Well, just a reminder to everyone that is watching this, Field of View, you can catch kind of on a regular basis by going to aixr.org. We have Field of View listed on there. You can also find it on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, all ofthese different places wherever you get your kind of podcasts. And the great thing is you can actually subscribe on our website to be able to get notifications every time a new episode comes out, alongside of actually


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