Wevr, the veteran XR studio behind one of VR’s earliest and most recognizable VR demo, announced it’s now secured $3.5 million in new funding from HTC Corp. and Epic Games.

It’s been almost a decade since VR enthusiasts first got a chance to don the pre-production version of HTC Vive at GDC 2015, where they likely went face-to-face with a giant blue whale in Wevr’s iconic VR demo theBlu: Whale Encounter.

Of course, Wevr has done much more beyond that iconic first episode in its theBlu series, having worked on a number of immersive experiences over the years including Gnomes & Goblins, Harry Potter VR, and Reggie Watts Waves VR. You’ll probably recognize more than a few in the studio’s sizzle reel below:

Now HTC and Epic are adding to their investment in Wevr as the company announced it’s expanding its cloud-based development platform Virtual Studio and real-time 3D production capabilities, which the company says will help them meet new demand for brands to create XR content.

According to Crunchbase data, this brings the studio’s lifetime investment to $42.3 million, with its $25 million Series B investment arriving in February 2016.

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“Wevr is an incredibly creative company with a command of XR technology. They are the ones to beat in this space,” said Cher Wang, CEO of HTC Corp. “We share the founders’ mission and passion for creating high quality spatial content and bringing immersive experiences to the next level on premium XR systems.”

Additionally, Wevr announced that industry veteran Tim Dillon has joined the leadership team as EVP Business Development, who brings his extensive experience in interactive and immersive media, experiential and emerging technologies, including at Media Monks and Moving Picture Company (MPC).

Founded in 2010 and originally known as WemoLab, Wevr has worked with a number of brands on location-based XR entertainment, including Warner Brothers, Google, Samsung and Universal, having collaborated with Jon Favreau, Deepak Chopra and Run The Jewels.

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • alxslr

    It's mindblowing that The Blu is from 2015. And in some sense, kinda depressing that something that old like that is still almost state of the art in terms of spectacularity and graphic quality. I still show it as a first VR session experience today. What happened? We have advanced a lot in some areas since Meta pivoting to standalone but sometimes I'd like to be in that parallel universe.

    • XRC

      Pimax had their UK leg of their Crystal Light roadshow here in London yesterday; I tried The Blu as it's always been a great demo that scales well with resolution. Of course, it looked absolutely stunning in high resolution!