The Virtual Technology World

Read time: 4 mins.

On 22 November, OVHcloud and the Alchemy Crew ran an investor event to connect tech startups with corporate delegates and venture capitalists. Named #Pitch410, the event provided an opportunity for 12 startups to pitch their innovative ideas and present to potential investors. Each startup was given time to explain its story, the founder’s journey, and their asks. After each session, there were post-event drinks and nibbles that provided a chance for everyone to network in a relaxed environment. 

Our focus this time around was on Web3.0, the Metaverse, NFT, and Blockchain. We know that these technology areas have received a lot of interest from the market as billions of dollars have already been invested in these emerging practices, and many market players are trying to grasp how to deliver client-centric products and services to meet the needs of this upcoming immersive world. 

To run the event, our team at Alchemy Crew reviewed 200s of Virtual Tech startups, including Web 3.0, NFT, the Metaverse, and Blockchain. We discovered through our sourcing process that they were over 11.7K Virtual Tech startups that have already received over USD $145 billion in funding over the past 10 years. 

These companies develop new technologies that take the digital world to the next level, as noted above, more immersive and more connected. And our collaboration with OVHcloud aims to enable those ventures to gain access to new cloud-based capabilities to build, grow and scale their businesses, including being more “open, sustainable, and free in the cloud” so that they can bring new ideas to life. 

”The world of immersive technology is starting and advancing rapidly. Generation Z (those aged between 10 and 26) is drawn to the metaverse as a social experience. They make up approximately 60% of users in the metaverse and tend not to draw hard lines between their interactions in physical and virtual worlds. This generation spends an average of 12 hours playing games in the metaverse, compared with approximately 7 hours of in-person contact, and is more immersed in the digital culture than any other generation. Immersive experiences will draw people not only for pleasure but for delivering unique experiences too, superseding non-immersive experiences someday.”

Sabine VanderLinden, CEO and Managing Partner, Alchemy Crew

OVHcloud’s goal is to enable each company to build its most ambitious project in a secure, compliant, and sustainable cloud environment by providing each one of them with high-performance, cost-effective services for managing and protecting its data asset at scale. 

Since 2015, over 3,000 startups and scaleups from across the globe have joined the OVH Cloud ecosystem. The successful and rising startups include Yepic.ai and Paper.li. From day one, startups entering OVHcloud Startup Program get access to credits, co-marketing opportunities, and support.

“The XR sector is rapidly expanding, and it’s exciting to see so many startups entering this space with innovative and creative ideas. As a cloud provider, we understand the importance of providing the infrastructure necessary for these startups to succeed. By offering scalable and affordable cloud solutions, we’re helping to fuel the growth of this exciting industry and support the next generation of XR pioneers.”

Filippo Sanesi, Startup Program Manager of UK, Ireland and Northern Europe, OVHcloud

The immersive space is a rapidly growing industry with immense potential and is cloud-based. Startups that are able to capitalize on the cloud can reap many benefits and use it to their advantage. The cloud can help them to save money, be more efficient, be more secure, get support from cloud providers, and focus on their core business. In order to be successful, startups need to overcome the challenges that they face. However, if they are able to do so, they will be well-positioned for success.

Many of the startups you will see listed below are seeking to talk and engage with investors. So do engage with them if you can find a few moments to do so. 

Before diving into the profiles of the startups that joined us on 22 November, we want to remind you to check our LinkedIn page for upcoming events. We intend to deliver 5 additional events, including AI & Data Analytics, FinTech, InsurTech, and Health Tech, over the course of the next 6 months.

Year founded: 2019

Country: London (United Kingdom) 

Funding stage: Seed

Yepic is a provider of text-to-video editing software founded in 2019. Their mission is to connect the world through shared language. They identified the complexity of professional video production. A simply video can take an agency 6 to 10 weeks and event longer to localise while DIY options are not designed for business and existing solutions are expensive and time consuming. With the belief of future of video is AI-generated, ultra-localised, and hyper Personalised. They help to turn text into professional videos instantly for sales processes and make a professional video in minutes, such as video in different languages with realistics avatars from photo and text, persoonalise video workflows at scale to integrate CRM and distribution channels, and real time dubbing to bring the power of video translation to any application or camera. Their solutions have been used in e-learning, real estate, and video production industries.  

Year founded: 2022

Country: Manchester (United Kingdom)

Funding stage: Unfunded

Niftyz, founded in 2022, is the first NFT platform for business. Niftyz is a subscription-based platform that enables businesses of all sizes and sectors to easily monetize their know-how, reports, documents and other digital and physical assets as NFTs or Non-fungible tokens. Niftyz spotted a gap in the market and wants to add value to businesses and their end clients by enabling them to create new revenue streams through this powerful technology. They have expanded the utility of NFTs. They productise and monetise digital property and IP, by turning pitch decks, communities, events, memberships, know-how and more into tradable NFTs. Today, they would with corporations enabling them to enter the Niftyz sandox to learn how to monetize their brands and digital assets. 

Year founded: 2020

Country: London (United Kingdom) 

Funding stage: Pre-seed 

Cranq is a provider of low code NFT application development platform founded in 2020. The platform offers a low-code platform that helps developers to build, test, and manage APIs and applications. It enables testing the APIs using human-generated tokens and interactions for authentication purposes and helps in recording the real-time status. The features they offer include integration of new content with composability, simplify the process of coding your own nodes, and debug visually.

Year founded: 2022 

Country: London (United Kingdom)

Funding stage: Unfunded

Social convert is a combination of a one-time platform and configuration cost, coupled with a recurring monthly subscription for their partners. Social Concert spotted a problem in the digital market that has fundamentally changed, which causes social advertisement fatigue & digital saturation. They then discovers the newest and the latest in social advertising through a platform. Their value proposition is to provide real-time insight, cost reduction, control and safety, and drive social impact. 

Year founded: 2016

Country: London (United Kingdom)

Funding stage: TBC

The Round is a provider of augmented reality services founded in 2016. The Round is the world’s first Web 3.0 platform for live entertainment in Augmented Reality (AR), with unique virtual venues for broadcasting live intimate and multiplayer holographic performances and collecting exclusive NFTs and Meta-merch from famous creators. Their products include streaming protocol, iOS/ Android app, and Web3 integration. 

Year founded: 2014

Country: London (United Kingdom)

Funding stage: Seed

Vieweet, formerly Virtual View App, provides VR technology for the Real Estate industry founded in 2014. The digital twins of residential properties. Vieweet identified the sequential pain points of buy and sell properties. They decided to bring in new services at the point of listing on websites. By using 3D modeling, enables end-users view videos, photo gallery, 3D floor plans and 3D houses in VR when they scan an image, it allows transparency of the property to potential buyers. Their clients are real-estate agents, home builders, including Mitchel Graham, Thomas Morris, Preston Baker among other major brands. 

Year founded: 2017

Country: London (United Kingdom)

Funding stage: Unfunded

Blockdeed is an online platform to buy and sell collectible real estate NFTs and a provider that aims to uberizing real estate sales. Their vision is to become a global marketplace and professional network that fully digitize the real estate sales process. Blockdeed spotted a problem of there is no existing platform for real estate professionals to earn commission from property developers. They are creating a platform to bridge the gap that allows real estate professionals to earn money from developers when buyers submit their offers using the platform. Blockdeed is a subscription-based platform which allow users to get access a shared global portfolio network. 

Year founded: 2015

Country: London (United Kingdom)

Funding stage: Seed

Spinview aims to unlock the value of data with visual intelligence for the built environment founded in 2015. Spinview brings businesses the power of visual intelligence using our AI-driven platform. With the latest in digital twin technology, they capture and transform all the data about space into meaningful, actionable, measurable information. The fees are based on a subscription to their platform plus a data processing fee based on types of data capture, the volume of data, and the frequency of updates. They are a top 30 metaverse company and awarded no.11 in Proptech Global Companies.

Year founded: 2022

Country: London (United Kingdom)

Funding stage: Unfunded

Red-Tailed Hawk is an early-staged startup that is developing an application that aims to help people dealing with stress, anxiety, or depression in a selectable metaverse universe, where you can anonymously talk with a licensed therapist or doctor to take professional help, including yoga and various activities to keep your mental health vigorous. Red-Tailed identified a problem of the difficulties of the process of patients getting access to therapies. They are creating a platform that is personalised and allows flexibility for patients to receive treatment from licensed therapist and doctors.

Year founded: 2018

Country: Cardiff (United Kingdom)

Funding stage: Seed 

Virtus Tech is a developer of a platform offering VR-based tools to create digital training tours founded in 2018. Their mission is to provide the next level of virtual reality training and immersive learning platform. They offer a virtual reality platform that facilitates the creation and hosting of digital tours of websites, facilities, and services. Its features include multiple data integration, user stats with new and returning user durations, digital analysis with marketing content, and customization. They provide the no-code VR engine for medical training. Virtus Tech have officially onboarded 7 health boards and all medical universities in Wales, United Kingdom. 

Year founded: 2021

Country: London (United Kingdom)

Funding stage: Unfunded 

Etherspot is a blockchain-based platform for smart contract management and enables frictionless in Web3. Etherspot identifies a problem of the majority of digital assets are on centralised black-box exchanges, while the market share of DEX spot trade volume is small. Their aim is to deliver Web3 without compromising self-custody by social login onboarding, seedless set, recovery solutions, bundle transactions, pay for transactions with token, and high security level to hard wallets. Etherspot SDK supports a number of Blockchains to deliver fritionless Web 3 experience, pre0defined modules for quick adoption, sponsored transactions and fiat on/ off ramp. Their tarket marks are wallets, games and dApps. 

Year founded: 2021

Country: Manchester (United Kingdom)

Funding stage: Unfunded 

Uforika is a decentralized marketplace for buying and selling of NFT focused on metaverse properties founded in 2021. They identified a problem of fit-for-purpose game engine technology is not available to deliver scalable web3 massive open-world platforms. The current architecture utilises legacy game engine technologies, expensive third-party software, and play-to-earn, which inspire them to build a web 3.0 metaverse platform built using new, innovative, and fit-for-purpose game engine technology that enables fast iteration, efficiency in game engine architecture and engages and earn. Gamers can explore the virtual world, engage in games and experiences and create content and own digital assets. 

As of 2022, the top funded business model among virtual technology is blockchain trading model with $5.49 billion, followed by Web 3.0 blockchain network with $5.13 billion and Web 3.0 application development platforms with $4.07 billion.

Virtual technology is revolutionizing the way we interact with the world around us. From Metaverses to Web 3.0 and blockchain, virtual technologies are bringing us closer together than ever before. 

Virtual technologies have opened up a whole new world of possibilities for exploration and collaboration. So why not take advantage of them? Dive into the Metaverse!

Here is the upcoming event and the estimated date.