With excitement surrounding the technology growing by the day, huge investments are being made in virtual reality (VR) right now. The latest company to benefit from new funding is Boabab Studios, a VR specialist that’s today announcing completion of a Series A round of funding, raising some $6 million USD to work on a range of VR content. Investors include major players in the VR space such as HTC and Samsung.
Joining these two are the likes of Comcast Ventures, Advancit Capital, Chernin Group, Freelands Ventures, Zyngo co-founder Mark Pincus and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. Baobab Studios itself was formed by former Zynga Vice President Maureen Fan and DreamWorks Animation’s Eric Darnell. The team has already released a preview of one VR project in the form of Invasion! a 360 degree animated film that’s currently available on Milk VR, Samsung’s official streaming service for its Gear VR mobile-based head-mounted display (HMD). The studio will be bringing more content to the platform in 2016.
“Our mission is to create compelling cinematic characters and stories that bring out the innate wonder in people and inspire them to dream of new worlds they never imagined before,” said Baobab Studios CEO and co-founder Maureen Fan. “With our investors, team and partners, we have the foundation to become the preeminent animation studio for VR.”
As you might expect, the company is also working with HTC to bring its content to the HTC Vive. “Baobab’s has one of the strongest teams in VR,” said Phil Chen, chief content officer and founder of HTC Vive. “Their combination of technology, creative storytelling, and business talent uniquely positions Baobab to become the Pixar of VR. We are excited to be working with them to make VR mainstream for consumers over the coming years.”
For the latest updates on Baobab Studios, VR investments and more, keep reading VRFocus.
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