YouTube’s audience was already quite large: Big-balance-sheet-Google already owned it, an ad-supported monetization infrastructure was already in place, and folks had the requisite hardware and networking capabilities (en masse) to make venture-backed YouTube content bets work. Having been an early investor in the YouTube MCN ecosystem, I’m definitely open to making these kinds of “content” platform investments, but not yet. A sustainable production funding and monetization cycle for cinematic VR content will only emerge with a much larger audience.
#Us venture partners augmented virtual reality movie#
I don’t think VC dollars should be funding movie production, and that’s what cinematic VR companies look like to me right now.
My friend and past co-investor, Joe Kraus of Google Ventures, said not too long ago that 2017 is “the year of survival for VR companies.” I think this particularly holds true for cinematic VR companies, which will eventually need to rely on larger audiences for direct monetization. Investor-wise, strategics such as Comcast Ventures have been particularly active in cinematic VR however, it was Andreessen Horowitz that wrote the biggest check to date for an early-stage cinematic VR startup (for Within). For the most part, these companies have either been started by recently minted Harvard Business School MBAs or by folks with significant past creative/technical show business experience. We have seen a host of venture-backed startups emerge in this category: Baobab, Penrose, Within (formerly VRSE), Felix & Paul and, at one time, even Oculus’s internal Story Studio. Cinematic VRĬinematic VR refers to storytelling and short films - content whose success is dependent on creativity more than on unique, defensible technology. And concert and sporting event producers look to engage (and monetize) fans on a new and exciting event viewing medium.Īs an investor, I’m looking at all of these closely, alongside a few enterprise applications of VR/AR (particularly within training and education), but for the purposes of this article, let’s stick to the entertainment biz.
Game developers look to create ethereal escapes and immersive horror and shooter games. Movie studios look to additive VR/AR “bonus content” to help market their tentpole $100 million theatrical releases. Visual effects engineers improve motion-capture techniques for inserting real-life human holograms into virtual worlds. Moviemakers are exploring opportunities for director-uncontrolled viewer perspective in VR movies. Most venture-backed startups around entertainment VR/AR have fallen into four buckets: Cinematic VR, sports/live events, content-creation tools/infrastructure and gaming.
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