In Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality News
April 21, 2020 – Immersive virtual mobile app company 360VUZ has announced that it has secured USD $5.8 million in a Series A investment round from venture capitalists including Shorooq Partners (lead investor), KBW Ventures, Media Visions, Vision Ventures, Hala Ventures, 500Startups, and others.
360VUZ has created a mobile app that offers users 360 degree views of a variety of entertainment events. Users watch events through their smartphone, and can either physically move around with their phone to change the view, or can move the view around by scrolling with a finger to experience an entire scene in full 360 degrees. For additional features, users can pay a subscription fee and gain access to exclusive 360 content.
360VUZ states that the investment will support further development of its immersive video app technology, scale the business, expand the company’s global reach and offer more personalized experiences along with additional proprietary technologies.
“We are on a mission to help connect people around the globe by building a hyperconnected world while offering full control and authenticity,” said Khaled Zaatarah, founder and Chief Executive Officer at 360VUZ. “We are expanding the ability of every individual to Teleport and connect with people and experiences virtually while removing the constraints of TTA: travel, time, and access. Today more than ever, we understand that building a hyperconnected world is vital, and it is solving one of the major problems that the entire world is facing right now.”
According to the company, the 360VUZ Teleporter mobile app has already had a strong global rollout, connecting users in more than 15 countries with a user engagement increase of more than 571% in 2019 in comparison to the previous year, in addition to an uptick of over 297% over the past 30 days. The app, ranked as one of the top featured apps on the Apple App Store, was highlighted on the store’s main page in March.
“None of this would be possible without the tireless efforts of our team in addition to our partners who put 360VUZ on the global map. Our team is determined to keep on innovating and keeping users at the core by focusing hugely on personalization and continuing our global roll out to more cities in Asia, Europe and USA. We see the demand on our immersive and VR content increasing and we are excited to keep on innovating in the VR, AR and Live virtual video space,” Zaatarah affirmed.
Commenting on his company’s investment, Shane Shin, Founding Partner at Shorooq Partners, said: “360VUZ reflects the true spirit of innovation. It is not only a regional, but also a global pioneer in the immersive video streaming space and we are truly privileged to join this exciting journey. By forging strong partnerships with telcos, the company has been able to rapidly scale into pivotal markets. Even during these difficult times of COVID-19, 360VUZ has continued to prove its value as an entertainment provider with massive growth in user engagement”.
360VUZ plans to offer additional proprietary technologies on top of the latest patent that has been fully granted from the United States Patent and Trademark Office related to augmented reality, artificial intelligence, machine learning, virtual control, as well as new advertising solutions.
This investment brings the startup’s total amount raised to USD $7 million to date. Previous investors include Al Touq Group, DTEC Ventures, Plug and Play Ventures, Al Rashid family angel investors, Tareq Jalabi and Mohanad Alwadiya. Other investors in this latest financing round included Magnus Olsson, Samih Toukan and Jonathan Labin.
Image credit: 360VUZ
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About the author
Sam is the Founder and Managing Editor of Auganix. With a background in research and report writing, he has been covering XR industry news for the past seven years.