News
Tips For Game Development Funding | Perforce
Before starting to look for funders and backers for your project it's important to know the kinds of support is available. This article is a good starting point to understand how funding works, the types of funding available, and what each of them requires from you and your team to be successful.
Business
Invest in Startups You Love - Equity Crowdfunding | Wefunder
Wefunder is a mature funding platform and a Public Benefit Corporation with many good success stories funding various kinds of businesses. Immersed VR recently earned more than $5 million dollars in their current round of funding on the platform. Another notable success story is Meow Wolf, who also went on to additional venture funding and opening three locations in the United States.
Game funding and financing, we are gaming investors – Game Seer
If what you're creating is a game then GameSeer may be a good fund to consider. This private venture fund is made up of gamers who concentrate on early funding both console and indie games. With more than 15 years experience and a pretty decent portfolio they may be a good team to work with to bring your game to market. If you're ready why not pitch them your idea?
Home | Venture Reality Fund
If your project is VR or XR focused and you have a more entrepreneurial approach to your company then this may be the fund to research. Though they were founded in 2016 their portfolio is growing very strong. They refer to themselves as a "founder friendly firm" and provide both funding and more hands on mentorship where needed.
Support Independent Developers
Offering investors both rewards and a return on the investment through game sales, Fig shareholders own a portfolio of gaming titles that come onto the platform. This isn't the typical funding platform, since the investors have a say in what titles come onto the platform. With a focus more toward indie development and recently joining Republic this could be a good fit for somewhat established to more mature teams.
Virtuix | Invest in the Future of Gaming
This isn't a platform to invest, but is a great example of a company using an investment opportunity to help both grow and recover the VR arcade industry from COVID closures. With backing by very highly influential VCs like Mark Cuban we expect them to meet their funding goals in the next few days. More importantly the structure of how they have run their funding round is worth learning about and seeing if it is something that could work for your project.
Tools
NASA | 3D Resources
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has been quietly releasing models and imagery of their space missions for years, and all of it is available online for free. These are also used by astronauts within virtual training missions, and some of them are within 50 microns in dimension from the real life equipment. If you do use any of the assets be sure to check out the NASA media usage guidelines to understand any clearances you may need to get before releasing your project.
One More Thing
Imagining the Future: HMU Experience - Part 1
Our first post in a series reimagining what is possible with head mounted VR units. In this installment we explore one of the more basic additions that will make HMUs useful beyond short play sessions: integrations and notification handling.
Commentary
Virtual Reality is pretty big business, and is expected to reach a value of 55.7 billion USD in less than ten years. The companies currently working to build or integrate VR will be the ones that are ahead of the curve, so it makes sense to start working toward making experiences, games, and tools now. Getting started isn't always easy, and in this issue we're highlighting funds, communities, and resources to help mentor and financially back a project you may have considered but may not know how to get financed.
This is pretty good info to have for both indie teams or established companies, and we were very interested this week in collecting this info for reasons that we'll be able to share later.
If you do wind up pitching or, even better, getting funded we'd love to know so message us on Twitter when you get the good news. We'd love to feature you in our directory and even have you sponsor an issue once you're on the path to releasing your vision.
As always, thank you for subscribing or reading online. See you in the next issue.
Other Realities