YourNest, IAN Invest $1.45 Mn In Virtual Reality Startup SmartVizX

Noida-based virtual reality startup SmartVizX has raised $1.45 Mn (INR 10 Cr) in a pre-Series A funding round led by YourNest Venture Capital with participation of the Indian Angel Network’s IAN fund.

Talking to Inc42, Gautam Tiwari, co-founder of SmartVizX confirmed the development and explained that the funds will be used for scaling up the product team and building additional capabilities to the product, along with international expansion.

Founded in January 2015 by husband-wife duo of Gautam Tewari and Tithi Tewari, SmartVizX provides virtualisation with the interactive virtual environment based on ‘immersive technology’ for business applications and helps facilitate consumer buying behaviour and decision making.

After raising $500K from IAN in 2016, with the latest fundraising, the company also announced the launch of its first virtual reality product— Trezi, which it said is India’s first Virtual Reality-based platform for architecture and interior design collaboration.

Gautam told Inc42 that with the new product customers can now walk through architecture models. The product aims to revolutionise the architecture-engineering-construction (AEC) industry.

Once a 3D model is passed through Trezi, it is created in a virtual environment which can then be accessed through a VR headset. With Trezi, architects, designers, contractors, real-estate developers, prospective buyers and tenants will experience the project’s design at full scale using its visualization, spatial awareness, interactivity with design elements and data management features.

The company claims that Trezi dramatically improves the understanding, communication and translation of interior design for all stakeholders in the design process, resulting in reduced errors and omissions, time spent re-visiting decisions, and material wastage.

The company plans to approach suppliers to upload their VR catalogues into Trezi which would make it a more efficient way for them to reach out to architects and designers.

Sunil Goyal, director and fund manager, YourNest Venture Capital said, “Trezi has the potential to become the default software standard for the industry. We were also impressed with how the team utilised the angel round they had raised towards building their technical team.”

VR, AR, And Mixed Reality: The New Crowns Of Startup Industry

India is increasingly witnessing a growing number of virtual reality and augmented reality startups. We have players like Imaginate, which offers solutions for defence and medicine amid other uses.

The startups are also getting traction on the funding front. Recently, Bengaluru-based Virtual Reality ad network Chimera received an undisclosed round of angel funding.

In December 2017, Virtual reality-based prop-tech startup Foyr raised $3.8 Mn in Series A funding. Prior to this, in April 2017, Bengaluru-based AI and virtual reality startup Absentia VR secured $1.2 Mn (INR 8 Cr) in its Pre-Series A round of funding. An Augmented Reality platform Whodat raised $600K funding recently.

Virtual reality is a potential multi-billion dollar market worldwide, with an emerging presence in India today. It has applications in a number of verticals including gaming, education, healthcare, real estate, architecture, online shopping etc.

The global market for AR platforms is expected to rapidly grow to $85 Bn to $90 Bn and for VR, it can reach to $10 Bn to $15 Bn revenue by 2022, according to Digi-Capital, a consulting firm that covers the industry. Goldman Sachs estimates that the opportunity for Virtual Reality in the consumer real estate industry alone will be in excess of $ 2.5 Bn by 2025.

Update 1: July 18, 2018, Wednesday 13:58

Earlier the post mentioned that the global AR market is expected to rise from the current $20 Bn to over $150 Bn by 2020. The facts mentioned were four year old and are now updated with the most recent projections from Digi-Capital.