Yahoo Japan and The Venture Reality Fund Partner to Grow the Global AR and VR Ecosystems Through Strategic Investment
2017年6月7日 - 10:00PM
ビジネスワイヤ(英語)
The Venture Reality Fund (“The VR Fund”), a leading global
venture capital firm focused on early-stage investments in the
augmented, virtual and mixed reality (AR/VR/MR) spaces, and Yahoo!
Japan Corporation (“Yahoo! Japan”, TYO:4689), announced a joint
effort to inspire innovation and accelerate growth in the AR and VR
industries. Yahoo! Japan is the leading media company in Japan with
over 90 million daily unique browsers across its mobile and online
properties in e-commerce, advertising and rich media. The VR Fund
is one of the most active and experienced venture investors in the
sector, and its comprehensive portfolio consists of early-stage
startups developing content, infrastructure, platforms and tools
for the broader global ecosystem.
“Yahoo! Japan and its leadership team are known for their
commitment to continuous innovation and enriching services for
their users and community,” said Marco DeMiroz, co-founder and
general partner of The VR Fund. “Immersive technologies in AR and
VR have great potential to revolutionize business, empower
consumers, revitalize the economy and drive awareness and positive
change in the world. Yahoo! Japan’s investment will help cultivate
and scale new technologies and applications that can transform
content consumption and commerce for the consumer.”
Under the partnership, The VR Fund will provide Yahoo! Japan
deep insights to the AR/VR sector as well as early access to
leading AR and VR innovators, which will drive Yahoo! Japan’s
investment into AR/VR startups and potential business development.
The VR Fund’s investment portfolio will, in turn, benefit from
Yahoo! Japan’s unparalleled insights into internet business and
consumers in Japan.
“We’re excited to partner with The VR Fund to accelerate the
growth of some of the world’s most promising AR and VR
technologies,” said Yuichiro Tanakamaru, corporate development
manager of Yahoo! Japan. “We believe that AR and VR have the
potential to transform consumer behaviors for media, shopping,
social interaction, and other content and commerce dimensions,
which will inevitably drive substantial economic growth across the
globe. We look forward to working closely with The VR Fund to
identify and promote the best and the brightest in the space.”
The combined worldwide market size for AR and VR is expected to
exceed $143 billion by 2020, an annual growth rate of 198.0% over
the 2015-2020 forecast period. The VR Fund is part of Yahoo!
Japan’s growing network of partners cultivating new technologies
for its continued growth and development.
About The Venture Reality Fund:
The Venture Reality Fund (“The VR Fund”) is a Silicon
Valley-based venture capital firm focused on early-stage
investments in the virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and
mixed reality (MR) spaces. The firm invests globally in innovative
companies across a wide variety of sectors from infrastructure and
development tools to content and applications, to help
entrepreneurs bring industry-defining technology to market faster.
The firm’s first successful exit, Owlchemy Labs, closed within The
VR Fund’s first year of operation.
As part of its commitment to educating and strengthening the
ecosystem, The VR Fund publishes industry insights including
quarterly global VR and AR landscapes detailing the market’s
growth, new investments and increased international impact. The
founding team is also a proud partner of the Women in XR
initiative, which connects female founders and women-led businesses
to capital and resources.
For more information, please visit TheVRFund.com, like The VR
Fund on Facebook and follow on LinkedIn and Twitter.
About Yahoo! Japan Corporation: Yahoo Japan Corporation
was founded in 1996 and operates Yahoo! JAPAN, one of the largest
portal sites, in Japan. Offering more than 100 services including
search, news and e-commerce via PC and smart devices, Yahoo! JAPAN
serves more than 90 million daily unique browsers, and 70 billion
monthly page views on average. The total number of downloads for
iOS and Android applications released by Yahoo Japan Corporation
exceeds 480 million. For more information, please visit
http://ir.yahoo.co.jp/en/.
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version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170607005065/en/
For The Venture Reality FundKatie Gerber(310)
777-7546katie@pmbcgroup.com