Disney has added Littlestar, the “VR Cinema Network,” to its accelerator program. Joining the media conglomerate’s tech accelerator will give the startup access to Disney’s considerable resources and a chance to garner more investment from industry players down the line.
Littlstar offers Android, iOS, and Gear VR apps that provide access to 360° videos, photos and VR cinema, including content from Red Bull, Mercedes, the MLB and others.
The company recently joined the Disney Accelerator which gathers selected startups in Los Angeles for three months of development and mentorship. Also featured in the bundle are $120,000 in investment capital and an investor demo day in October.
The startup’s goal is importantly to be hardware agnostic; while it is currently available for mobile VR platforms, Littlstar say it’s “coming soon” to Oculus Rift, Sony Morpheus, HTC Vive, Merge VR, and more,” though the company does not say whether its platform will release at launch for those devices. Littlstar also supports content from a wide variety of cameras and engines, from Jaunt, Google Jump, Nokia OZO and many others on the camera side, to Unity, Unreal, Maya and more on the engine side.
Littlstar launched its Gear VR app a little over four months ago after working with Oculus on fine-tuning and debugging. To hear Littlestar tell it, Oculus then surprised the startup by going ahead and releasing and featuring the app, much to Littlstar’s delight. Since then, Littlstar has been hard at work improving the app’s functionality, a process that the Disney Accelerator should, well, accelerate nicely.
Littlstar also provides tools, including an API and rendering engine, for developers “wanting to integrate immersive technologies into their apps or websites,” according to its website.