Forbes recently interviewed the well-known virtual reality investor TIpatat Chennavasin to discuss issues such as the future vr hot investment field.
Chennawsin is not only the co-founder and general partner of the Venture Reality Fund (vr Fund), an early venture capital firm focused on ar and vr startups, although the identity of the light is impressive enough. He graduated from Stanford University with multiple identities: experienced 3D artists, interaction designers, storytellers, developers, and vr/ar industry spokespersons and thought leaders.
Forbes recently interviewed Chenawasin and learned about his view of vr from an investment perspective. As a consultant to several vr companies and a mentor to vr incubators and entrepreneurial accelerators around the world, he has put forward some savvy and unique advice to vr startups who want to get financing.
Q: Can you first talk about which limited partners (hereinafter referred to as "LP")?
A: Our strategy LP includes those who believe that vr will be the future and want to make it happen. Our main LPs include gumi, a large mobile gaming company from Japan that operates a project called "Tokyo vr Venture Accelerator" in Japan and also operates the "Seoul Vr Startup Project" in Korea. Another major LP is Colopl Next, a vr-focused fund based in Japan, founded by Cologl, a well-known Japanese mobile gaming company. Both Gumi and Colopl are game companies, but they are also excited about the wide reach of vr and its potential influence in games and other areas. We also have strategic LPs in the US and China markets, but we are not ready to publish this information.
Q: How much do you have to invest in this area?
A: The fund we set up plans to invest $50 million in companies that include multiple stages of early, seed and round A. Our investment is very flexible and the amount of investment depends on the needs of the startup's development plan. Our initial investment ranges from $100,000 to $800,000, and all of our transactions are conducted with other institutional investors or angel investors.
Q: vr investment is quite popular, and hot topics can always push up the valuation of startups. What specific trends do you want to invest in?
A: We are concerned about several types of companies. The first category is those that are committed to solving vr's current opportunities, or companies that have clear and tangible needs and real needs. At present, the development of vr is very beneficial, such as Facebook, HTC, Samsung, Sony, Google and other large companies are building excellent hardware platforms. This is actually about getting involved and looking for "killer" apps, exploring what will drive the popularity of vr. What kind of user experience do you want to build? What are the challenges? What is transformative?
Take education or tourism applications as an example. Everyone knows that vr will change the field of education. What is currently blocking this change is the high manufacturing cost of vr content. The cost of creating the amazing virtual travels that people want to experience is simply too high. We have to take a step back and think about it: "How can we do two things at the same time? One is to make the professional production team more efficient, the other is to make the content production popular, and let more people become vr creators. "So we are looking for teams that are trying to solve these problems and are thinking about innovative things that are expected to change the way we interact with the media and content, and the teams that are at the forefront of the industry."
I also want to tell entrepreneurs that we are not looking for companies that are waiting for the vr market to grow and grow to reach 10 million or even 100 million shipments. We are looking for companies that are committed to building use cases or solutions that are expected to drive millions of people to buy vr devices.
Q: Will these make the job of investors more challenging? Is investment more speculative and depends on the future?
A: Of course. Start-ups in the early stages of investment are very difficult, and industries in the early stages of investment are more difficult. The advantage for us is that we only focus on one area of ​​investment. We have been immersed in the vr and ar industries. My partners and myself have a background in the game industry, both have established entertainment companies and have done interactive content, so we have a deep understanding of this type of technology, operations and how to build a successful company in a very dynamic market. understanding. This makes us look a bit special and can be distinguished from traditional venture capitalists. We don't have to wait for startups to make common progress or indicators to evaluate them effectively, and most other investors tend to rely on that information. We feel, “Yes, we can evaluate the startup team, we can also evaluate their technology more deeply than others, and we understand the hidden market dynamics.â€
For us, some of the opportunities and things that people create that can affect our lives are very interesting. Personally, I used vr to cure my fear of heights in real life. I am very convinced of the power of vr as a new medium, and I want to find entrepreneurial teams that really make the most of it and truly apply vr to the individual and professional needs.
Q: From the perspective of building a technology vr company, what are the main points? Must I have a great team? Do you think that is especially important in a new market with a lot of moving parts?
A: The success of a startup is certainly inseparable from entrepreneurs who have great enthusiasm and motivation to build something far-reaching. We want to fully exploit the enthusiasm of entrepreneurs, provide them with guidance and support, and then make it concrete. Vr and ar reset the arena, there is no real expert in the vr field, so anyone can create something amazing and it's possible to really find a solution that uses vr in a new way.
To some extent, there is no advantage to the success of the past. Many people pointed to Hollywood and said, "I am very much looking forward to the work of these film production companies." I am sure they will make some amazing content, but at the same time, I think that day and night tirelessly After delving into the students who are able to jump out of the intrinsic mode of thinking, it is really possible to create amazing and creative things that really make it possible to stand out.
Q: Who else has an amazing performance in the vr investment field?
A: There are obviously many strategic funds and corporate funds that are excited about vr. Oculus recently announced that they have invested $250 million to support content production and will invest another $250 million in the future, which is beneficial to the development of the entire vr ecosystem. Whether on the project or in corporate investments, Google and Google Ventures have been involved early. Comcast Ventures has provided support to a number of outstanding companies in the field. HTC created its own fund: the Vive X fund is $100 million, and they apparently bet on vr. Intel and Qualcomm are also active in this area. Now there are funds like ours, which are completely focused on vr, and there are many consecutive entrepreneurs in the team who turn to VC. Our vr Fund is also very active in this field and has invested in 14 very good companies.
According to the number of transactions, the most active in the industry is our partner and limited partner Colopl Next. Funds such as Presence Capital, GREE vr Fund, and Boost VC, which also owns the vr incubator project, have also invested in many vr companies. Compared to a year ago, the vr investment ecosystem has improved significantly and become smarter. Of course, traditional venture capital firms such as Andreessen Horowitz, DFJ, Sequoia, Lightspeed, Signia, WiL, and RRE are also working. There are many smart people in these traditional venture capital funds that pay close attention to vr, and they have already invested in many companies.
I think these are no small changes compared to the past. I have felt for a long time that everyone is tightening investment; traditional venture investors have tightened their investment in vr, only making some strategic investments, or just setting up smaller funds. However, today's specialized funds and smarter investors have increased significantly, and the field has also attracted a large amount of funds from overseas regions. For vr/ar, this is a very strong and very exciting period.
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