LIVE FROM AR & VR WORLD, LONDON: Enterprises and startups should not waste any time trying to understand how they can best use augmented and virtual reality (AR and VR), a leading VC investment officer espoused.

Barry Downes, chief investment officer of Sure Ventures, explained the company’s experience in backing AR and VR companies showed there is little point in holding back on deployments of the technologies.

Citing hardware as an example, Downes said equipment is already “very, very good” and, as price points lower, it will be fairly easy to upgrade when the time comes.

From an enterprise perspective, he trumpeted the use of smart glasses as an area where there is a huge opportunity in industries including automotive, oil and gas, along with military applications.

He gave the example of car maker Porsche which is planning to deploy smart glasses to enable remote technicians to access manuals and data to help fix tricky problems in its vehicles.

Sure Ventures will invest in a smart glasses company by the end of the summer, he added.

Awareness
AR and VR startups are already racking up successes. Downes highlighted Immersive VR Education, a company backed by Sure Ventures which went public in March. It sold more than 100,000 units of a VR space experience based on the Apollo 11 mission since launching the system in 2016, which was included in the Oculus Go range.

Immersive VR Education is preparing a similar experience based on the wreck of the cruise-liner Titanic, which it expects to enjoy greater sales due to rising consumer adoption and awareness of VR.

The most recent company Sure Ventures invested in is Immotion, which is developing 4D location-based VR experiences which convey movement along with high quality sound and visual graphics

Immotion is focused on selling, hiring-out and franchisng its technology to commercial centres to enable them to attract visitors.