Meet 10 teams from the first-ever Startup Wise Guys XR-Malaga batch
We are excited to introduce you to 10 international teams that are kicking off our first-ever XR program batch. The program will run from June to November 2022 in Malaga, Spain. Selected startups get access to up to €90,000 convertible investment per startup and will go through an intensive 5-month program, jam-packed with cutting-edge industry knowledge, expertise, and the prospect of connecting with over 350 mentors and 200 investors. The program is managed on-site from the facilities of Polo Nacional de Contenidos Digitales de Malaga, where also our new SWG hub is located.
This might be one of our most international batches ever: we have 22 founders from different countries and cultures: from China to South Africa, passing through the US, Mexico, Brazil, and Jamaica, jumping along the road to Georgia and Armenia, and of course our usual suspects from CEE. We also have a founder from Spain and this batch has overall higher Western European representation than on average with founders coming from Austria, Denmark, Portugal, France, and Germany. We are also excited to discover strong female leadership in the XR industry. 40% of the selected teams have female co-founders, and two of them embarked on a CEO journey.
The spectrum of technologies underpinning the products is extremely diverse supporting our initial thesis about the transversal nature of XR as a medium. Our participants are exploring virtual and augmented reality technologies, artificial intelligence, 3D modeling and publishing, and spatial audio. Such convergence blurs the boundaries between the physical and the digital, the human and the machine, revealing the new hybrid nature of the user experience in the interoperable Metaverse. Being largely complementary to each other the startups are working on their unique products with that creating an additional synergetic level of healthy “coopetition”.
From anxiety-free pediatric procedures to volumetric streaming cloud infrastructure, from spatial attention tracking and quantification to next-gen virtual pets for pet lovers and beyond, from vocational training to content publishing tools and communities – the XR applications gain traction across the board. The long list of use cases includes health care, education, training, influencer marketing, brand engagement, music, cloud computing, gaming, collaborative design, and talent management.
Meet the startups:
10X Immersive (USA) – 10X Immersive helps children/patients to have less painful, anxiety-free pediatric procedures using a personalized most immersive Virtual Reality based system.
Captic (Austria) – A content aggregator for the Web3 era.
Crosscreators (USA) – Augmented Reality platform simplifying AR content creation for brands.
ExplodedView (Poland) – Build tools to help people capture and share their stories directly from the Metaverse.
SkillUp (South Africa) – Skill UP is an advanced virtual reality-based skills training library geared to accelerating the necessary skills for on-site work.
Overly (Latvia) – Easiest to use an augmented reality platform in the world!
PatchXR (Switzerland, Denmark) – The format for interactive media in the Metaverse.
Sense of Space (Finland) – Sense of Space is making it possible to create high-definition Metaverses by enabling the streaming of large 3D models with excellent visual quality into multiple platforms and devices.
Soma Reality (Austria) – Custom Solutions & sensor-based analytics for Virtual Reality.
Virtual Beings (France) – Virtual Beings creates next-gen virtual pets for pet lovers, and make highly interactive virtual characters that feel alive for games across platforms.
Meet the batch team:
This program is managed by Mariia Tintul, who also holds the hat of Business Development at the SWG team. Before joining SWG one and a half years ago, she was also a dedicated mentor for the previous programs. She has 8 years of experience in Business Development and Sales and for the last 4 years focused specifically on the XR vertical. Mariia will be working closely with Luana Nicosia, who has previously managed Wise Guys first-ever SaaS Africa and 2nd SaaS-Milan batch and is the master of order and “make it happen”.
“I am happy to see the results of our search for enablers and vertical shapers. This cohort is building exciting products that will create even more opportunities on the XR market. We have just spent the first weeks onsite together, and I am already amazed how active and engaged this batch is. Coming from a VR/AR background myself, I can already see how this batch will definitely challenge me to think of even more immersive experiences in this journey. I’m excited to have such a challenge.”
Mariia Tintul, Managing Director of XR batch
The core team will be joined by Andrey Lunev, as a Venture partner of this XR program. His entrepreneurial background, experience with VC practices, and long engagement with XR tech gave him profound analytical insights into opportunities for investors and startups.
“I’m extremely satisfied with the quality of the products, team composition, and commitment the founders have demonstrated so far. The timing is perfect to launch this very first pan-European XR batch. Metaverse is all-around us, and SWG portfolio already made market-winners like ReadyPlayerMe. The network we’ve been building up in the program covers the entire XR value chain from hardware to content creators, including financing partners like VC investors and corporate innovators. Overall, I’m confident that infusing SWG values and culture into the Metaverse-first startups is critical to attract talents capable of winning over the new digital landscapes which we set out to construct”.
Andrey Lunev, Venture partner of XR program
For our first-ever XR batch along with our core mentor team that will be focusing on fundraising, pitching, sales, and company building, we have also invited 35 (and counting) XR mentors.
“At FOV Ventures we’re excited about the role that XR will play in shaping the next evolution of compute and the broader Metaverse. We’re excited to support SWG and the founders that they have selected which represent a broad and diverse set of interesting use cases.”
Petri Rajahalme, Founding Partner at FOV Ventures and XR batch Mentor
These amazing mentors will be sharing their vast expertise and knowledge of the field with the batch.
“The caliber and innovation acumen of teams selected and guided by Startup Wise Guys is impressive. I’ve already been fortunate to work with alums of the program who continue to add value to the ecosystem and look forward to the contributions of the next cohort.”
Jenna Seiden, VP of Business Development at Niantic and XR batch Mentor
#WiseGuysXR network expansion never stops. Additional dedicated activities will be introduced during the program. A priority for the team is to select and onboard more XR domain experts into the #SWGfamily.
