HTC’s $10 billion VR Alliance

At the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Shanghai, HTC Vive announced a $10 billion initiative to invest in VR-focused start-ups along with regular firms like Sequoia Capital and Redpoint Ventures. Vive’s VR Venture Capital Alliance (VRVCA) will have 27 firms joining it and it will be headed by Alvin Wang Graylin. It should be noted that $10 is the amount of “deployable capital” which is combined amount the firms can use and not the amount HTC is willing to invest. The VRVCA will meet every 2 months in San Francisco and Beijing to listen to companies and raise funds for them. Firms that wish to apply will have to submit pitch decks to the VRVCA for review.

More About VR:

Virtual reality or virtual realities (VR), which can be referred to as immersive multimedia or computer-simulated reality, replicates an environment that simulates a physical presence in places in the real world or an imagined world, allowing the user to interact in that world. Virtual realities artificially create sensory experiences, which can include sight, touch, hearing, and smell.

Most up-to-date virtual realities are displayed either on a computer screen or with special stereoscopic displays, and some simulations include additional sensory information and focus on real sound through speakers or headphones targeted towards VR users. Some advanced haptic systems now include tactile information, generally known as force feedback in medical, gaming and military applications. Furthermore, virtual reality covers remote communication environments which provide virtual presence of users with the concepts of telepresence and telexistence or a virtual artifact (VA) either through the use of standard input devices such as a keyboard and mouse, or through multimodal devices such as a wired glove or omnidirectional treadmills.