The Startups That Are Reinventing Remote Working Through Virtual Reality
The virtual office is coming and will change everything
The term metaverse refers to a virtual shared space where people can work, interact and play together in a 3D virtual world that uses augmented reality, fast internet connection, and AI. It comes from “meta” (beyond) and “universe”. Neal Stephenson coined this word in the 1992 novel Snow Crash where he described an enhanced, paradise version of Earth that offered people an escape from the struggles of real life.
Before the pandemic, spending most of the day online was something reserved for videogames-obsessed people. However, the Covid-19 health crisis completely shifted the paradigm of online interactions forcing billions of people around the world to connect with friends, family, and colleagues using video calls and other technologies.
Many professional organisations have experienced the benefits of not having a physical office, including for example the cost of renting expensive office spaces (in central London, desk space for one employee could cost a company up to £30,000 a month). As a result, as the pandemic is (hopefully) coming to an end, companies are considering remote working as a permanent measure.
Surfing this wave of online interactions, several startups around the world are taking the concept of remote working to a different level.
They are creating parallel universes, also call metaverse, where we can work, socialise and play. In other words, they are creating platforms that simulate real-life experiences and enhancing our current online interactions.
Below my favourite startups that are building the future of work
Gather Town
The Venture Capital Investment Company Sequoia described Gather as “Zoom meets Minecraft”. The Silicon Valley company is focusing on developing a platform where users can easily create custom 2D spaces including an office environment. The picture below is an example of the Gather office space in action.
When a company subscribes to Gather, the management can create their own spaces where employees can work and interact with each other. For example, you can build collaborative space, conference rooms etc.
Further, people can create their own 2D characters and personalise their avatar’s physical characteristics and clothes.
To simulate the physical space and to provide the feeling to employees to be in the same room, the platform uses innovative audio technology that makes you hear someone’s voice louder when you are closer to them in the metaverse.
Gather has over 4 million subscribers and is backed by very high profile Venture Capital Funds including Sequoia Capital.
RoomKey
RoomKey is a London based Startup that allows creating 3D spaces to host seminars, conferences and network events. Similar to Gather, hosts, as well as guests, can create their own avatars which, in RoomKey are Sims style characters like the ones illustrated below
There are several types of rooms that can be created where people can interact, being the audience of a Panel discussion or jumping on stage for a talk.
As mentioned above, RoomKey allows companies to organise their own events and create their own virtual spaces. Further, the company is promoting several meta-verse events across many different subjected ranging from Entrepreneurship Seminars, Demo Days, Virtual Art Galas, Meetups etc. A full list of the events can be found on their website.
Branch
Branch is another US-based company that aims at disrupting the way teams interact virtually. They have created a virtual office where people can move around like a video game.
Instead of a 2D or 3D character resembling your physical characteristics, Branch avatars are cartoon-like balls colourful balls that you can customise.
The main selling point is to reduce zoom fatigue by facilitating conversations with a real-life feeling. They do so by using audio spatial technology where you can only hear and be heard by people near you in the virtual space. This should:
“Bring back the serendipity of hallway bump-ins and water-cooler chats”
Also, you can fully customise the office space, design office furniture as well as buy and sell objects. There are over 1000 companies that are currently using this technology for their employees including Spotify, eBay, Amazon, Google and others.
The video below gives you a flavour of how this looks like
The meta-universe is still in its infancy and these companies have yet to reach mainstream usage.
As such, I expect that in the new few years a number of companies will enter this space and provide better and better solutions to the problem of creating an engaging virtual environment.
In addition to the “virtual office”, a number of companies are spending a lot of money to develop meta-universes where people can play and socialising.
Very recently Epic Games announced that it completed a $1 billion round of funding to build future metaverse associated with their highly successful game Fornite and other games.
Given the above, Venture Capitalists should watch this space to identify potential opportunities to invest in young companies with the vision of disrupting people work, play and socialise.
Metaverse Ventures is already doing that by raising a Venture Capital Fund that only invests in companies focusing on the metaverse
Hope you find the article interesting and feel free to comment below with your ideas on this! Thanks!
