Best Startup
At Best Startup US we track over 1,000,000 US startups and over 3 million people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top United States based Founder operating in the Virtual Reality space. If you think a Founder is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.us.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Anand Agarawala
Co-Founder & CEO of Spatial
Anand Agarawala is the creator of BumpTop, an irresistible new desktop interface with a satisfyingly three-dimensional physicality and a fresh approach to interactivity. Anand completed his Master thesis in 2006 which pioneered a novel physically based desktop interface leveraging expressive power and casual nature of real desks. His Masters of Computer Science was completed at the University of Toronto. He completed his undergraduate thesis in 2004 at the University of Calgary. In his free time, Anand enjoys competitive team sports such as hockey and basketball. He often travels to India and across Europe and North America.
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About BumpTop, Spatial: Spatial allows NFT creators to customize a virtual space and gather for events such as exhibitions, brand experiences, and conferences.
Jinha Lee
Founder & Chief Product Officer of Spatial
Designer, inventor, and entrepreneur. Cofounder of Spatial, a social immersive platform for creators. Named as a young global leader by World Economic Forum in 2015, MIT TR35, Forbes 30 under 30 Asia, and one of FastCompany’s 32 greatest living designers. Spatial has been listed as one of the most innovative company in the world by FastCompany magazine in 2021. Prior to founding Spatial, Jinha created technologies to physically interact with digital data for the past decade: SpaceTop was a pioneering Augmented Reality desktop that allowed people to reach inside the screen. He also created a physical pixel, ZeroN, that levitates and moves freely as his master thesis project at MIT. At Samsung, he led the redesign of Smart TVs, turning screens into a collaboration platform and artistic data visualization. As an advocate for inclusive design, he co-designed Bradley Timepiece, an award-winning tactile wristwatch for the blind. These projects became viral and brought him to the TED stage in 2013.
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About Spatial: Spatial allows NFT creators to customize a virtual space and gather for events such as exhibitions, brand experiences, and conferences.
Marcy Boyle
Co Founder, CEO of Hot Bit VR
Marcy Boyle is the CEO and co-founder of Hot Bit VR, a upcoming webVR marketplace of experiential social shopping. Hot Bit VR has been featured on ZDnet, Entrepreneur, Fox News, and listed as one of the “30 Best Virtual Reality Companies to Change Your World Soon.” She and her co-founder’s VR experiences have been featured in art galleries, universities, conferences, and festivals including FIVARS in Toronto and VRUK in London. Hot Bit VR was selected for the first class of the AR/VR/XR accelerator at the Green Screen Institute, and Silicon Valley’s Women’s Startup Lab. Prior to working in VR, she co-directed the feature film, NOBODY CAN COOL, which was released internationally. Marcy is a graduate of Barnard College, Columbia University and is a member of Women in VR, Women in Film, and on the Board of the Alliance of Women Directors.
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About Hot Bit VR, Oculus: An experiential marketplace in virtual reality.
Roman Mikailov
Founder, CEO of Hyperverse
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About Hyperverse: Hyperverse is a software company that develops VR experience distribution platforms for its clients.
Brian Schimpf
Co-Founder and CEO of Anduril Industries
Brian Schimpf is Co-Founder and CEO of Anduril Industries. Previously, Brian was Director of Engineering at Palantir Technologies, where he led a large engineering organization developing and deploying data integration and analysis products. He served numerous domestic and international government organizations across the intelligence, defense, and law enforcement sectors. Previously, Brian was the Founder and Lead of Cornell University’s autonomous vehicle research program where his teams competed in DARPA’s Grand Challenge and Urban Challenge. Brian graduated from Cornell University with a Bachelor of Science in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering.
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About Anduril Industries: Anduril Industries is a defense product company that builds technology for military agencies and border surveillance.
Matt Grimm
Co-Founder and COO of Anduril Industries
Matt Grimm is Co-Founder and COO of Anduril Industries. Matt was profoundly moved by the tragedy wrought on his community and many others around the world by the attacks of 9/11. It was then that he decided to combine his passion for building with a deep sense of mission to further the country’s national defense—a career path that ultimately led him to co-found Anduril. While classmates at Cornell University, Matt co-founded with Brian Schimpf the university’s autonomous vehicle entry into the DARPA Grand Challenge and Urban Challenge competitions. He graduated from Cornell with both a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and a Master of Engineering in Systems Engineering. After consulting for the Department of Defense at Booz Allen Hamilton, Matt was an early hire at Palantir. In this role, he deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan to ensure U.S. forces had the best technology for the mission. Matt co-founded Anduril after some time working in venture capital in the San Francisco Bay Area. He lives in Orange County, California with his wife and two children.
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About Anduril Industries: Anduril Industries is a defense product company that builds technology for military agencies and border surveillance.
Palmer Luckey
Founder & CTO of Anduril Industries
Palmer Luckey is the Founder of Anduril Industries. He is also the designer of the Oculus Rift, a virtual reality head-mounted display, and the founder of Oculus VR. Frustrated with the inadequacy and high cost of the existing HMDs on the market, Palmer began experimenting with his own designs in 2009 at the age of 16. In 2012, he formed Oculus VR, which was acquired two years later by Facebook for $2.3b. Palmer began attending Golden West College and Long Beach City College at the age of 14, and studied at California State University, Long Beach before dropping out to found Oculus VR. His deep interest in defense technology was driven by his time at the USC ICT MxR lab, where he built hardware used to research immersive PTSD treatment for US veterans. He continued to support various military applications of VR during his time at Oculus, informing his belief that radical modernization of US military technology is a prerequisite for preserving our way of life.
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About Anduril Industries: Anduril Industries is a defense product company that builds technology for military agencies and border surveillance.
Halsey Minor
Founder and CEO of Live Planet VR System
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About Live Planet VR System, VideoCoin Network: Live Planet’s VR System is the first end-to-end solution for easily capturing, storing, streaming, and recording immersive VR video
Derek Belch
Co-Founder and CEO of STRIVR
Derek Belch is a Co-Founder and the Chief Executive Officer of STRIVR.
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About STRIVR: STRIVR is an information technology company that specializes in virtual reality, customer experience, and athlete performance.
Jeremy Bailenson
Co-Founder of STRIVR
Professor at Stanford University, head of Stanford’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, and VR expert. Jeremy Bailenson is a Co-founder and the Chief Visionary at STRIVR. He is the founding director of Stanford University’s world-renowned Virtual Human Interaction Lab and a Professor in the Department of Communication at Stanford. He is one of the world’s leading experts in virtual reality. His findings have been published in over 100 academic papers in several fields including communication, computer science, education, law, medicine, and psychology. Bailenson is an author of the book Infinite Reality which was recently quoted by the Supreme Court outlining the effects of immersive media.
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About Cognitive Leap Solutions Inc., Stanford University, STRIVR: STRIVR is an information technology company that specializes in virtual reality, customer experience, and athlete performance.
Trent Edwards
Co-Founder & Sports Training of STRIVR
Trent Edwards is a Co-Founder at STRIVR. He was a Former Stanford and NFL Quarterback for the Buffalo Bills, Jacksonville Jaguars and Philadelphia Eagles. Trent is a former Stanford and NFL quarterback. He was drafted in the third round by the Buffalo Bills in 2007 and spent three seasons as the team’s starting quarterback. Following his stint with the Bills, Edwards spent a season each with the Jacksonville Jaguars and Philadelphia Eagles and two training camps with the Oakland Raiders. Edwards brings his experience as a quarterback at the professional, collegiate, and high school levels to the development of STRIVR’s products and services.
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About STRIVR: STRIVR is an information technology company that specializes in virtual reality, customer experience, and athlete performance.
Herman DeBoard
CEO & Founder of Huvr Inc.
Successful Entrepreneur, built major technology projects working with Sony, Universal, Warner, EMI and more. Products have been distributed in Target, Best Buy, Fry’s Electronics and many more.
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About Huvr Inc.: Huvr is a global virtual marketplace that helps to connect human walkers to virtual travelers to explore the world in real-time.
Anthony Borquez
Founder & CEO of Grab Games
Anthony is experienced in building and scaling creative tech businesses. His first company he co-founded, Spacient Technologies, was an early mobile GPS software platform that was acquired by Trimble Navigation. Anthony’s prior game company, Blue Label Games, built some of the first mobile gaming technology and content. In 2006, Blue Label Games was acquired by Japanese gaming leader Konami. The acquisition helped enable Konami’s mobile gaming division to become a top worldwide mobile game publisher. Anthony is also a Professor at the University of Southern California, where he teaches courses in Entrepreneurship and Gaming.
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About Faceroll Games, Flightly, Grab Games, University of Southern California, University of Southern California Marshall School of Business: Grab is focused on creating high-quality entertainment content across all major interactive platforms.
Morgan Mercer
Founder, CEO of Vantage Point
Morgan Mercer is the founder of the VR-based enterprise training company, Vantage Point. Vantage Point’s suite of immersive training tools is initially aiming at tackling Anti-Sexual Harassment and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) training. Mercer was recently regarded as one of the Top 10 Female Tech Innovators [in history] by TechRadar and has been featured in 4+ dozen publications including WIRED, NPR, The Economist, Vogue and more. Mercer was regarded by the UN Women chapter as a “Champion of Change” in the ‘Era of Equity’.
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About Vantage Point: We create experiences that change the way you think. Vantage Point is the future of workforce learning.
Edo Segal
Founder and CEO of Touchcast
Edo Segal is the Founder & CEO at TouchCast.
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About bMuse, iWise, Kinsa, Touchcast, Touchcast: Touchcast is the world’s leading enterprise metaverse company. We connect people by breaking down barriers of space, time and language.
Dan Levitan
Co-Founder and Partner of Maveron
Dan Levitan is the firm’s co-founder and managing member of both the General Partner and Maveron LLC, the Management Company. Since co-founding the firm with Howard Schultz 23 years ago, Levitan has led many of the firm’s successful investments, including zulily (NASDAQ:ZU), Trupanion (NYSE:TRUP), Capella Education Company (NASDAQ:CPLA), and Potbelly Corporation (NASDAQ:PBPB). Forbes recently named Levitan to its Midas List—the magazine’s annual ranking of the top 100 VCs in the world. He currently serves on the board of directors of Allbirds, Daring Foods, Domain Money, Engageli, Otis, Pacaso, Trupanion, and Two Chairs.\. Prior to co-founding Maveron, Levitan spent 15 years in investment banking, focused primarily on consumer businesses. During his banking career, Levitan helped more than 100 companies go public, make strategic acquisitions or monetize the equity value they had created. Levitan met Howard Schultz in 1991, when Starbucks began planning for its IPO, and eventually helped the company go public. Levitan currently serves as a member of the Boards of Trustees of Seattle Children’s Healthcare System and Seattle Children’s Hospital and he also serves on the Investment Advisory Committee for Seattle Children’s which oversees over $2B in AUM. Dan is also a board member of The Rock Center for Entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School where he acts as a judge at the annual New Venture Competition. Dan is also chair of Brothers for Life, a charity that helps wounded Israeli combat soldiers. Levitan is a graduate of Duke University (BA) and Harvard Business School (MBA).
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About Maveron: Maveron is a consumer-only venture capital firm that empower consumers to live on their terms.
Travis Wu
Co-Founder of LumiereVR
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About LumiereVR: LumiereVR is a film studio that uses virtual reality technologies to make films.
Jenny Guo
Co-Founder of LumiereVR
Jenny Guo is a co-founder of LumiereVR, which is dedicated to using Virtual Reality (VR) to bridge the gaps between tech, arts, and design. She is a cross-border creative producer, art collector and tech entrepreneur. She has been named on Forbes 30 under 30 twice for Asia and China in 2018 and was voted in the top 10 women in VR in China in 2016. Backed by HTC ViveX and TechStars, her company LumiereVR won the top 10 VR projects in 2016 in China. The VR films she had worked on have also won multiple awards in both Asia and U.S including a prestigious Lumiere award from The Advanced Imaging Society. She majored in Electronic Art and Political Studies at Bard College and later studied Creative Producing at Columbia University. Prior to joining the VR industry, Ms. Guo had extensive experience in auction houses and art dealing between China, and U.S. She has spoken at multiple conferences including Harvard Graduate School of Design, J.P Morgan, VREdEx, TEDxBohaibay, and Wharton School of Business.
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About Forbes, Gemological Institute of America, Harvard University, Highstreet, Jenny Guo Studio, LumiereVR, The Magnetic Project: LumiereVR is a film studio that uses virtual reality technologies to make films.
Neha Singh
Founder & CEO of Obsess
Neha Singh is the Founder & CEO of Obsess, a platform for Immersive Mobile Commerce.
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About Obsess: Obsess is a platform for immersive mobile commerce.
Hao Li
CEO & Co-Founder of Pinscreen
Hao Li is Founder and CEO of Pinscreen, Inc., and Distinguished Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. He was previously Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southern California, Director of the USC Institute for Creative Technologies, a visiting professor at Weta Digital and a research lead at Industrial Light & Magic / Lucasfilm. For his contributions in non-rigid shape registration, human digitization, and real-time facial performance capture, Hao received the TR35 Award in 2013, recognizing him as one of the top 35 innovators under the age of 35, from the MIT Technology Review. He was named Andrew and Erna Viterbi Early Career Chair in 2015, and was awarded the Google Faculty Research Award and the Okawa Foundation Research Grant the same year. He won the Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator Award in 2018. He is best known for his work on dynamic geometry processing, facial animation, and data-driven techniques for making 3D human digitization and facial animation accessible to the masses. During his PhD, Hao co-created the first real-time and markerless system for performance-driven facial animation based on depth sensors. The team later commercialized a variant of this technology as the facial animation software Faceshift (acquired by Apple Inc. in 2015 and incorporated into the iPhone X in 2017). He was brought on as visiting professor at Weta Digital to build the high-fidelity facial performance capture pipeline for reenacting the deceased actor Paul Walker in the movie Furious 7 (2015). His recent research focuses on combining techniques in Deep Learning and Computer Graphics to facilitate the creation of 3D avatars and to enable true immersive face-to-face communication and telepresence in Virtual Reality.
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About Pinscreen, University of California Berkeley: Revolutionizing digital communication and online human interactions with user-generated and personalized 3D virtual avatars.
Graham Gaylor
Co-Founder of VRChat
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About VRChat: VRChat is a virtual reality social platform that allows users to easily build social virtual reality content.
Kumail Jaffer
CTO, Co-Founder of Gather
Mohammed Kumail Jaffer is the CTO and Cofounder at Gather.
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About Gather: Gather is a video chat platform designed to make virtual interactions more human.
Phillip Wang
CEO/Co-Founder of Gather
Phillip Wang is the CEO and Cofounder at Gather.
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About Gather: Gather is a video chat platform designed to make virtual interactions more human.
Nathan Foss
Co-Founder of Gather
Nathan Foss is the Co-Founder at Gather.
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About Gather: Gather is a video chat platform designed to make virtual interactions more human.
Alex Chen
Co-Founder and VP of Product of Gather
Alex Chen is the Co-Founder and VP of Product at Gather Town.
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About Gather: Gather is a video chat platform designed to make virtual interactions more human.
Chris Milk
Co-Founder, CEO and COO of Supernatural
Chris Milk is the Co-Founder, CEO, and COO of Supernatural. He is an artist, director, and technologist.He is the founder and CEO of [Vrse](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/vrse#/entity). Milk has gained recognition as a music video director, working with Arcade Fire, U2, Kanye West, Green Day, Johnny Cash, Gnarls Barkley, Chemical Brothers, John Mellencamp, Courtney Love, and Modest Mouse. He has been honored with the top industry awards for his music video and commercial work, including the Grand Prix Cannes Lion, the D&AD Black Pencil, the Grand Clio, and SXSW’s ’Best of Show’, as well as multiple Grammy nominations, MTV Moon Men, and the UK’s MVA Innovation Award. Milk’s short film, Last Day Dream, played at film festivals around the world, and he directed the second unit of A Mother’s Promise, the film that introduced Barack Obama at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. The Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Awards recognized his work in design and art in 2011. The Wilderness Downtown was named as one of TIME Magazine’s 30 Best Music Videos of all time, and was exhibited at MoMA in NY for 6 months in 2011. Milk builds multiple projects with Virtual Reality as the canvas. The collaboration with Beck called “Sound & Vision” has been exhibited in an Oculus Rift at the Future of Storytelling Summit, Sundance Film Festival, SXSW, and Tribeca Film Festival. Chris Milk was born in New York.
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About Here Be Dragons, Supernatural, Within (VR/AR): Supernatural is an immersive, virtual reality fitness experience that combines music, coaches, destinations, and movements.
Alex Hern
Founder and CEO of Tsunami XR
Alex Hern has been an entrepreneur for more than 25 years. During his career, he has focused on early stage companies and on the incubation of technology companies. Alex Hern co-founded and served as a Director of Inktomi Goldman Sachs-led IPO (INKT), which powered and was the search technology for MSN, Yahoo and AOL. He was also the co-founder and Director of Yesmail Alex Brown led IPO (YESM), an email marketing and web directory company, which went public and then sold to CMGI, now ModusLink Global Solutions, for $650 million ten months later. Alex Hern co-founded Military Commercial Technologies a technology commercialization incubator funded by Lockheed and L-3, where he served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. In addition, Alex Hern co-founded and served as Director of Arcsight (ARST), a cyber security company, which also went public and was sold to Hewlett-Packard for $1.5 billion. Alex Hern co-founded and served as Director of CloudShield a network security company which sold to SAIC, a large technology and engineering firm specializing in government and commercial projects. Alex Hern also founded and served on the Boards of NewHomes.com and of Triton Network Systems (TNSI). Alex Hern has also served on the board of Zero Knowledge Systems, a security and encryption company now named Radial Point.
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About Tsunami XR: Tsunami develops and delivers advanced digital collaboration services for teams.
Snehal Dhruve
CEO & Founder of Cameraah
CEO & Founder at Cameraah
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About Cameraah, Dakiyaa App, Superfan Studio, Superfan.ai: Cameraah is a no-code tool to create AR experiences for Social & Commerce in minutes
Rizwan Virk
Founder & Executive Director of playlabs
Riz Virk is the Founder & Executive Director at Play Labs.
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About 500 Startups, Bayview Labs, BitMovio, Griffin Gaming Partners, MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition, playlabs: Play Labs is a new startup incubator/accelerator program for MIT-affiliated startups using playful technologies in any industry.
David Holz
Co-Founder & CTO of Leap Motion
David Holz is the CTO & co-founder of Leap Motion. Prior to founding the company, David contracted for NASA’s Langley Research Center and conducted neuroscience research while at The Max Planck Institute. He studied Applied Math at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, ultimately leaving his PhD program to co-found Leap Motion in 2010.
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About Leap Motion: Leap Motion is a software and hardware company that develops 3D motion-control technology for virtual reality and additional platforms.
Gene Munster
Managing Partner and Founder of Loup Ventures
Gene Munster is the Managing Partner and founder at Loup Ventures.
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About Loup Ventures: Loup Ventures is a research-driven venture capital firm based in Minneapolis and New York investing in frontier technology.
Doug Clinton
Managing Partner and Founder of Loup Ventures
Doug Clinton is a managing partner and co-founder at Loup Ventures. Prior to Loup Ventures, Doug was a research analyst at Piper Jaffray where he covered the internet space with Gene Munster. Covered companies included Apple, Google, and Facebook. Prior to joining Piper Jaffray in 2008, Doug was an early employee in sales and operations at Enpocket, which was later acquired by Nokia. Doug’s experience at Enpocket led to his interest in startups. Doug holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Boston University.
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About Loup Ventures: Loup Ventures is a research-driven venture capital firm based in Minneapolis and New York investing in frontier technology.
Andrew Murphy
Managing Partner and Founder of Loup Ventures
Andrew Murphy is the Managing Partner and founder at Loup Ventures. Before that, he was the Senior Marketing Manager at Ecolab.
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About Loup Ventures: Loup Ventures is a research-driven venture capital firm based in Minneapolis and New York investing in frontier technology.
Matthew Stoudt
Co-Founder and CEO of AppliedVR
Matthew Stoudt has a strong track record of building innovative businesses. Matthew is currently the co-founder and CEO of appliedVR. appliedVR’s mission is to drive positive behavioral by leveraging the unique properties of VR. The company is initially focused on the health care market and has rapidly become the leading medical VR platform delivering validated therapeutic VR content to health care providers in the US and internationally. Prior to founding appliedVR, Matthew founded and built Outcast Media into the largest digital video platform at gas stations across the US. Matthew sold the business to Verifone in 2014. Matthew was also an EIR at McDonald’s Corporation where he successfully launched multiple businesses including an in-restaurant digital video network and a ready-to-heat meal solution in grocery stores across the US. Matthew began his professional career in finance, raising over $1 billion in capital for high growth companies while at DLJ and investing in high growth companies while at Triumph Capital Group.
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About AppliedVR: AppliedVR offers virtual reality-based therapeutic treatments that address the complexity of chronic pain.
David Sackman
Co-Founder of AppliedVR
David Sackman is the Co-Founder and Chairman at AppliedVR.
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About AppliedVR, Material: AppliedVR offers virtual reality-based therapeutic treatments that address the complexity of chronic pain.
Ramses Alcaide
Co-Founder , CEO & President of Neurable
Ramses Alcaide is an electrical Engineer, neuroscientist, previous CEO of Pharo LLC and current CEO of Neurable. At Pharo, he managed high impact health projects, such as a malaria prediction system, a rehabilitation technology for stroke patients and a health monitoring system. As a researcher, he has worked extensively to develop the brain-computer interface (BCI) technology for people with amputations, children with cerebral palsy and people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. He was also the CTO and CSO at NeuroStride, developing their go to market strategy and technology. Lastly, he is also the inventor and primary developer of Neurable. His honors include the Neuroscience Innovator Award, National Science Foundation Fellowship, and Ford Foundation Fellowship.
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About Neurable: Neurable creates brain-enabled control directed towards virtual and augmented reality.
Jan Goetgeluk
Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Virtuix
Jan Goetgeluk is the founder and CEO of Virtuix and the developer of the Virtuix Omni, the first virtual reality interface to move freely and naturally in video games and virtual worlds. Jan is originally from Belgium and came to Houston in 2007 as a Project Engineer for Katoen Natie, a Belgian petrochemical logistics conglomerate. Jan decided to stay in the US and left Katoen Natie to obtain his MBA degree at Rice University in Houston, where he became President of the Rice Finance Club and Founder and Chair of the inaugural Rice Energy Finance Summit in 2009. While at Rice, Jan received the Jones Citizen award for his leadership contributions to the business school and the Jones Scholar award for his academic performance. Upon graduation in 2010, Jan joined JP Morgan as an Investment Banker in the Natural Resources coverage group in Houston and New York. While working as an investment banking associate, Jan started developing the Omni after hours in early 2011, In February 2013, after two years of researching, experimenting, and prototyping, Jan decided to leave his full-time job and founded Virtuix to bring the Omni to market. In June 2013, Jan launched the Omni Kickstarter campaign, raising $1.1 million through the sale of more than 2,500 Omnis.
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About Virtuix: Virtuix is a developer of a virtual reality platform that enables players to walk and run in 360 degrees in virtual reality.
Vitaliy Goncharuk
CEO and Founder of Augmented Pixels
I am CEO and founder of Augmented Pixels, based in Palo Alto, California, which provides software for simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) for augmented reality(AR/VR Glasses) and autonomous navigation(Robots / Drones). In 2016 I was honored to be a mentor and a judge at NASA(USA) Space Race project (link: http://bit.ly/2k1pTRX ) and was also asked to report in front of the board of directors of National Academy of Sciences (USA) about the long-term impact of Artificial Intelligence in several industries(link: http://bit.ly/2jPQ3Vy ). My hobbies: Skydiving, Good books, Mafia game(not Werewolf :=)), Jiu Jitsu(japanese style) and Control Line.
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About Augmented Pixels: Augmented Pixels – a leader in precise 3D geolocation and 3D maps crowdsourcing technologies
Nanea Reeves
CEO and Co-Founder of TRIPP
As CEO of TRIPP, Nanea Reeves brings over 15 years experience in digital distribution, video game technologies and mobile application development. Prior to co-founding TRIPP, Nanea was President & COO of textPlus, one of the top mobile communications applications on the iOS and Android platforms. Before joining textPlus, Nanea was the COO of Machinima, an online video influencer and content network focused on video games now owned by Warner Brothers. Nanea has also served as Chief Strategy and Product Officer at Gaikai, a cloud gaming company acquired by Sony Playstation. Previous to Gaikai, Nanea was SVP/COO of Global Online for Electronic Arts where she was responsible for building the foundation for EA’s digital revenue streams. Nanea came to EA through their acquisition of JAMDAT where she was SVP of Enabling Technologies. JAMDAT was one of the first breakout mobile games company with a successful IPO in 2005 before being acquired by EA in 2006. Nanea is very committed to supporting the evolution of the technology sector in Los Angeles and has worked as an Advisor and Angel Investor in many exciting So-Cal start-ups including Oculus, Haku and Saucey. Nanea is an active mentor and enjoys public speaking having given 3 Tedx talks on various subjects – including one focused on why girls should play video games. An avid meditator, Nanea also spends her free time playing video games, her ukulele and golf. She is also very active in her late husband’s non-profit Bodhicitta, Inc. as well as dedicated to helping women in recovery at the Peggy Albrecht Friendly House.
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About TRIPP: The award-winning digital psychedelic wellness platform that uses the power of virtual and augmented reality to change the way you feel.
Aaron Koblin
Co-Founder, President of Within (VR/AR)
Aaron Koblin is the Co-Founder, President at Supernatural. He is also the Co-founder and President of Within, an augmented and virtual reality company.Prior to Within, Aaron created and lead the Data Arts Team at Google from 2008-2015. Aaron has received many awards including the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award for Interaction Design and the National Science Foundation’s award for science visualization. He received an Emmy in 2014, and two of his music video collaborations have been Grammy nominated. In 2010 Aaron was the Abramowitz Artist in Residence at MIT. He received his MFA in Design|Media Arts from UCLA. His work is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) in London, and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. His projects have been shown at international festivals including TED, Sundance, Tribeca Film Festival, Ars Electronica, SIGGRAPH, the Japan Media Arts Festival, and more.
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About Here Be Dragons, Supernatural, Within (VR/AR): Within is a virtual reality and augmented reality media and technology company.
Robert Stromberg
Co-Founder & Chief Creative Officer of The Virtual Reality Company
Robert Stromberg is the 2-Time Academy Award winner for the production design on Avatar and Alice in Wonderland, and the Director of Disney’s Maleficent which has passed over $760MM in worldwide box office, the highest grossing directorial debut in history. No one can make a claim to a better track record of creating new and imaginative worlds using the top virtual camera tools. No one is more qualified to tackle the visual challenge of designing specifically for the immersive experience of VR.
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About The Virtual Reality Company: The Virtual Reality Company is a content studio that creates virtual reality experiences by combining technology, art, and storytelling.
Rex Wong
CEO & Co-Founder of AIVON
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About AIVON, Famecast Media, Intelligent Video Solutions: AIVON is a decentralized blockchain platform and protocol built on an Artificial Intelligence (AI) network.
Jonathan Waldern
Founder & Chief Scientist of DigiLens
Optimistic technologist Jonathan Waldern received a PhD in Virtual Reality at Loughbrough University of Technology under the United Kingdom’s advanced computing initiative. His first company, Virtuality Inc., became a pioneer in virtual reality training and entertainment. After a successful IPO, Jon came to California and founded DigiLens, the leading waveguide optics platform. A named inventor on over 70 patents, Jon has also received three national small business awards for innovation, manufacturing and management.
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About DigiLens, Metamaterial Inc.: DigiLens is an innovator in holographic waveguide display technology for extended reality (XR).
Jake Rubin
Founder & CEO of HaptX
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About HaptX: HaptX is a leading haptics company that brings realistic touch to virtual reality for the first time with HaptX Gloves.
Jason Sperske
Co-Founder & CTO of Zeality Inc.
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About Grammarly, Zeality Inc.: Zeality Inc. is the leading provider of innovative cloud solutions for delivering immersive media content across all connected devices.
Andrew Bursten
Co-Founder & President of Coastal Telephone Company
Andrew Bursten Co-Founded and served as President of Coastal Telephone Company, a long distance telecommunications company in 1985, which was sold to IXC Communications in 1999 in a 9-figure transaction. Subsequently, Andy led the management committee of Cyrus Networks, LLC, aka CyrusOne, an enterprise-class provider of data center services, from its formation in 2000, to the successful sale to ABRY Partners in a 9-figure transaction in 2007. Andy is currently the Business Strategies Partner for BFLP, managing a portfolio of investments, which includes private equity as well as interaction with investment bankers and portfolio managers. Andy has been a Director at Summer Energy Holdings, Inc. since June 4, 2013. He is the current President of the Board of Trustees and on the Executive Committee for The Emery Weiner School and a former Executive Committee member and Advisory Board member for the Holocaust Museum Houston. He has also served on the Boards of The Alley Theater, Bellaire Little League, The Fay School, Congregation Emanu El and The Evelyn Rubenstein Jewish Community Center.
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About Coastal Telephone Company: Coastal Telephone Company provides all types of communication platforms from analog phone systems to VoIP and fiber optics.
Alex Gellman
Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder of Vertical Bridge Holdings
Alex Gellman is the CEO & Co-Founder at Vertical Bridge.
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About Vertical Bridge Holdings: Vertical Bridge is a private owner and manager of wireless communication infrastructure.
Bernard Borghei
Executive Vice President Of Operations & Co-Founder of Vertical Bridge Holdings
Bernard Borghei is the Executive Vice President Of Operations & Co-Founder at Vertical Bridge.
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About Vertical Bridge Holdings, Vertical Bridge Holdings: Vertical Bridge is a private owner and manager of wireless communication infrastructure.
Darshan Shankar
CEO & Founder of Bigscreen
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About Bigscreen: Bigscreen is a popular VR/AR platform that enables people to work, play, hangout, and collaborate in immersive worlds
Sammy Khalifa
Co-Founder and CTO of Vicarious Surgical
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About Vicarious Surgical: Vicarious Surgical improves the lives of patients and surgeons by giving access to high quality care through the use of surgical robotics.
Adam Sachs
Co-Founder and CEO of Vicarious Surgical
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About Vicarious Surgical: Vicarious Surgical improves the lives of patients and surgeons by giving access to high quality care through the use of surgical robotics.
Taylor Freeman
Founder & CEO of Axon Park
Taylor Freeman is the Founder & CEO of Axon Park, a virtual campus where students from around the world can learn together in VR. He has been working at the intersection of VR and education over the last five years during which time he established two incubation spaces in LA and San Francisco housing over 150 AR and AI startups, hosted over 500 events focused around VR and AR, oversaw the training of nearly 1,000 students in-person on VR development, consulted with companies like NASA, Stanford Medical, Google, and IDEO and built a news media platform focused on VR that reaches millions of people per month. Taylor was awarded Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2017 for his work building the industry and he taught the first remote in-VR class with at MIT in 2018. He is deeply passionate about using VR to unlock new levels of human cognition and overcome the challenges many students face in the classroom around geographical limitations, student and teacher bias, and overall accessibility.
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About Axon Park: Welcome to your new virtual campus. Empowering organizations and individuals to harness the power of XR + AI for learning.
Cameron Brown
CCO & Co-Founder of Rec Room
Cameron Brown is co-founder and CCO of Against Gravity, makers of the popular social VR app Rec Room. Cam has worked in video games for over twenty years (Pandemic Studios, Beam Software), and was also a creative director on the Microsoft HoloLens program. He believes the future of computing is social, physical, and very exciting!
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About Rec Room: Rec Room is an online universe that enables users to play and create games with friends.
Nick Fajt
CEO & Co-Founder of Rec Room
Nick Fajt is the CEO & Co-Founder of Against Gravity.
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About Rec Room: Rec Room is an online universe that enables users to play and create games with friends.
Adam Arrigo
Co-Founder & CEO of Wave
Adam is passionate about building radically new experiences at the intersection of music, games, and technology, which ultimately bring people closer to each other. He has 13 years of experience working on music tech products as a game designer and product leader. While at Harmonix, he worked on AAA titles like Rock Band, Dance Central, Disney’s Fantasia, Harmonix Music VR, and more. He led the development of the 2015 Music App of the year Ditty, at LA-based music tech startup Zya (acq by Google). He is a multi-instrumentalist, producer, and synth enthusiast.
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About Wave: Wave focuses on interactive virtual experiences with a mission to help artists make money at the intersection of gaming and entertainment.
Aaron Lemke
CCO & Co-Founder of Wave
Aaron is a musician and VR developer who has shipped 9 VR titles. Interested in experiential and transcendent applications of VR, he has been creating VR experiences since the Rift DK1 days back in 2012. His first VR endeavor was Unello Design, the studio responsible for many relaxing and meditative VR titles like Eden River, Waking Man, and Zen Zone. Aaron is a three-time Proto Awards nominee for Best Score, and a member of the VRDC advisory board.
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About Wave: Wave focuses on interactive virtual experiences with a mission to help artists make money at the intersection of gaming and entertainment.
Gabe Paez
Founder and CEO of The Wild
Gabe Paez is the founder of WILD, a software company building a platform for design collaboration leveraging the power of shared virtual reality. WILD makes it easy to share 3D design ideas with a group of people together in realtime. Gabe has been a Technical Director and coder for 15 years. He specializes in creating immersive digitally augmented spaces. He is proud to have worked with a diverse roster of agencies and clients including Adidas, Verizon, Google, Nike, and Samsung. Gabe is an avid problem solver and finds great joy in bringing big ideas to life.
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About The Wild: SaaS, collaboration platform
Dean Travers
Co-Founder & Chairman of Luminopia
Dean Travers is the Co-Founder & CEO at Odin.
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About Luminopia, Odin: Luminopia is pioneering a new class of treatments for significant neuro-visual disorders.
Scott Xiao
Co-Founder & CEO of Luminopia
Scott Xiao is the Co-Founder & CEO at Luminopia.
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About Luminopia: Luminopia is pioneering a new class of treatments for significant neuro-visual disorders.
Kosta Popov
Founder & CEO of Cappasity
Kosta Popov, CEO and Founder, has 20+ years of experience and a successful track record as a software company CEO. Under Kosta’s lead, Cappasity has so far successfully raised $6.4M. Kosta is an expert in 3D technologies, SaaS solutions and mobile applications and was named one of the top innovators by Intel Software.
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About Cappasity: Cappasity is a cloud-based platform that lets online stores easily create and deliver 3D, VR and AR shopping experiences
Semyon Slobounov
Founder of HeadRehab
Semyon Slobounov is a Founder at HeadRehab.
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About HeadRehab: HeadRehab develops virtual reality systems with a focus on neurocognitive performance and enhancement tools.
Elena Slobounov
Founder of HeadRehab
Elena Slobounov is a Founder at HeadRehab.
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About HeadRehab: HeadRehab develops virtual reality systems with a focus on neurocognitive performance and enhancement tools.
Greg Castle
Managing Partner, Founder & CEO of Anorak Ventures
Greg is the Managing Partner of Anorak Ventures, a seed-stage venture capital firm focused on emerging technology. Based in Silicon Valley, the firm focuses on VR/AR, robotics, autonomous vehicles, blockchain, deep learning and artificial intelligence. Portfolio companies include Against Gravity, Catalog, Lightform and 6d.ai. Prior to Anorak, Greg was an active angel investor with 26 investments counting Flexport and two exits including Oculus, which was acquired by Facebook for $2bln. With strong ties to the VR/AR community, Greg focuses much of his time investing in, and mentoring startups in this sector. Previously, Greg led marketing for the popular game development company Scaleform (acq. 2011) and for Autodesk’s Game Technology Group.
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About Anorak Ventures: Investing at the earliest stages in transformational people and technology
Kirin Sinha
CEO & Founder of Illumix
Kirin Sinha, 25, is the founder and CEO of Illumix, a Lightspeed and Maveron backed AR gaming and technology company focused on developing adaptive and immersive experiences for the mobile phone. Previously, she founded SHINE for Girls, a national nonprofit targeted at encouraging middle school girls to pursue the study of mathematics. Not your typical gamer or CEO, Kirin is a Marshall Scholar and holds Masters degrees with honors in mathematics and statistics focused on machine learning, specifically computer vision, from the University of Cambridge and LSE respectively. She received a degree in electrical engineering / computer science and mathematics from MIT, and her MBA from Stanford University.
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About Illumix: Illumix develops augmented reality games.
Christopher White
Founder/CEO of Sneakers Apps
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About Forbes New York Business Council, Rad Hires, Sneakers Apps: Sneakers Apps is a full-service digital product development agency focused on helping brands launch and grow their businesses.
Kevin Cornish
CEO and Founder of Moth + Flame
Kevin has established himself as a leader in directing high-end, cinematic VR. He has worked with talent ranging from Taylor Swift to Karlie Kloss and Coco Rocha, as well as brands ranging from Chanel, Donna Karan, MTV, AT&T and AMD. His piece, Believe VR, was a first-of- its-kind cinematic VR experience that used gaze-activated technology to put the viewer inside a live action scene. It received much acclaim in the VR community, described by HuffPost as “groundbreaking” and “visionary.” He is a regularly recognized innovation leader in the space having spoken and presented at SXSW, VRLA, GDC, and Stanford. His work will be featured at the Future of Storytelling Summit this fall. Kevin is a graduate of Wesleyan University.
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About Conversive, Moth + Flame: Moth + Flame VR is the leading provider of immersive learning experiences for enterprise scale customers across a range of verticals.
Travis Putnam
Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Navitas Capital
Travis co-founded Navitas Capital in 2008 and is a Managing Partner with the firm. He is focused on next generation energy efficiency and green building technology solutions. His investments include Serious Materials, PowerMat, Lunera Lighting, Arxx, and Sustainability Roundtable. Prior to launching Navitas Capital, Travis founded Genesis Management Group (2005-2007), a business-development consulting firm focused on the built environment. Clients included Crest Steel Corporation (Reliance Steel Corp / NYSE: RS), Cal-Star Cement (green cement), and Artisan Precast. Travis also co-founded ValuSteel, Inc. a web-based steel trading platform. Prior to Genesis, Travis worked for Murphy & Associates Capital (2002-2004), a boutique investment bank, where he advised clients on mergers & acquisitions, private placements, and financial restructurings. Travis holds a degree in Economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania with a concentration in Finance.
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About Navitas Capital: Navitas Capital is a venture capital firm with a focus on real estate and construction tech.
Jim Pettit
Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Navitas Capital
Jim Pettit is a Co-Founder and Advisor at Navitas Capital. He currently serves as either a board director or observer on a number of boards, including Aquicore, Cherre and Optimum Energy. Prior to Co-Founding Navitas, Jim was a Principal a Bancroft Capital, a real estate investment firm located in California, and a Managing Partner at JP Morgan (Hambrecht & Quist). Jim received a bachelor’s degree from the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley with an emphasis on Finance and Real Estate.
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About Navitas Capital: Navitas Capital is a venture capital firm with a focus on real estate and construction tech.
Nicholas Horbaczewski
Founder and CEO of Drone Racing League
Nicholas Horbaczewski is the founder and CEO at The Drone League Racing and also the founder of Leeden Media. He is the previous senior vice president revenue and business development at Tough Mudder Inc. Nicholas ha a MBA at Harvard Business School and a bachelor’s degree in history and literature at Harvard University.
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About Drone Racing League: Drone Racing League is a drone racing circuit company for professional pilots.
Nikhil Jain
Co-Founder & CEO of ObEN
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About ObEN: ObEN is an AI company that is building a decentralized AI platform for intelligent avatars.
Elise Smith
Co-Founder & CEO of Praxis Labs
Elise Smith is a co-founder and CEO at Praxis Labs. Prior to co-founding Praxis Labs, Elise invested in and coached entrepreneurs developing diversity and inclusion solutions at NewSchools Venture Fund, a venture philanthropy. Prior to that work, she developed ed-tech products and led ed-tech partnerships at IBM Watson. Elise holds a B.A. in Geography & Social Inequity from Dartmouth College and an MBA and MA in Education from Stanford University. Inspired by her parents’ fight for educational equity, Elise is dedicated to scaling access and opportunity with the goal of creating a more equitable society.
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About Praxis Labs: Praxis reimagines corporate bias training, integrating research-backed curriculum with cutting-edge VR technology.
Melina Lopez
Founder of Praxis Labs
Melina Lopez is a Co-Founder of Praxis Labs.
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About Praxis Labs: Praxis reimagines corporate bias training, integrating research-backed curriculum with cutting-edge VR technology.
Heather Shen
Founder of Praxis Labs
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About Praxis Labs: Praxis reimagines corporate bias training, integrating research-backed curriculum with cutting-edge VR technology.
Brian Streem
Founder, CEO of Vermeer
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About Vermeer: AR/VR & AI Enable Mission Planning Tool
Shiraz Akmal
CEO & Co-Founder of Spaces
CEO & Co-Founder at SPACES Inc.
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About SABH’s Big Adventure, Spaces: SPACES designs VR, AR and MR experiences for theme parks, retail, and other public locations worldwide.
Maureen Fan
Co-Founder & CEO of Baobab Studios
CEO & Co-Founder of Baobab Studios.
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About Baobab Studios, Gold House, Producers Guild of America, The World Economic Forum: Baobab Studios is a VR animation company that creates story and character driven cinematic experiences.
Youssri Helmy
Founder, CEO of Eonite Perception
Youssri brings over 25 years of experience in engineering, product management, marketing, and business development in a wide range of technologies to Eonite. He is a serial entrepreneur who has successfully cofounded, operated and exited several startups globally.
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About Eonite Perception, Si-Ware Systems: Eonite Perception is a 3D mapping and tracking company on a mission to enable machines to understand the real world.
Walter Parkes
Co-Founder of Dreamscape Immersive
Walter F. Parkes is an American producer, screenwriter, and media executive. The producer of more than 50 films, including the Men in Black series and Minority Report, he is the co-founder and co-chairman of Dreamscape Immersive. Parkes helped to build DreamWorks as the head of its motion picture division, and served as the president of Amblin Entertainment. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards, receiving his first nomination as the director/ producer of the 1978 documentary California Reich; his second for co-writing the original screenplay for War Games; and his third as a producer of Awakenings.
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About Dreamscape Immersive: Dreamscape Immersive is a company that uses VR technologies to create an entirely new form of mainstream location-based entertainment.
Tony Mugavero
Co-Founder & CEO of Rad
Tony Mugavero is an experienced tech entrepreneur and executive with a media, business, blockchain, and computer engineering background. He is the Founder and CEO of Littlstar, a premium immersive network putting viewers at the center of experiences, and creator of the blockchain platform Ara. Ara is a distributed and decentralized system for all digital content and assets to be made available for sale on the blockchain.. Littlstar leverages this technology, and has the best content in the world from companies like NBCU, Warner Brothers, Universal Music, Showtime, Nat Geo, Discovery, PBS, Red Bull, Virgin, Disney, and more. He was a Co-founder and CTO at Galvanize, Inc., having co-founded and launched the 6-month gSchool engineering program, the co-working space, and Galvanize Venture Fund I focusing on early stage venture capital. In addition, he evaluated tech and media investments, raised money for Galvanize, and mentored startups on a daily basis. His work there won awards and countless features in the press. While at Galvanize his efforts took the company from $0 to $200k per month recurring revenue, sold out classes at Galvanize University with all graduates getting $60k per year jobs or better, and multiple investments in companies like Keen.io, Dabble, Pangea Organics, and more. Prior to building Galvanize, he was the Founder/CEO of MoovAtom, a simple API for providing cloud-based media encoding and delivery, which was successfully acquired in 2012. MoovAtom had clients like American Airlines, Pepsi, MEC Global, and TriNet. He was a Co-Founder of the music discovery app GigBeat, which was a Google MWC/IO Partner and AppCircus winner with over 1 Million users.
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About ARA Blocks, Rad: Rad is the Netflix of Blockchain, with NFTs, Crypto Rewards, and tokenized subscriptions.
Matthew Collado
Co-Founder, CCO Chief Content Officer of Rad
Co-Founder, CMO at Little Star Media, Inc.
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About ARA Blocks, Rad: Rad is the Netflix of Blockchain, with NFTs, Crypto Rewards, and tokenized subscriptions.
Bradley C. Harrison
Founder, Managing Partner of Scout Ventures
Brad is an entrepreneur and seasoned business development executive with a passion for technology, media, entertainment and lifestyle. Brad has a great deal of experience launching new ventures. While attending MIT, he worked as a Partner in a seed stage venture fund, ITU Ventures, and helped launch a joint MIT-Harvard incubator. During this experience, Brad worked at the earliest stages with many dynamic companies including Endeca Technologies. While serving as Director of Media Strategy and Development at AOL, Brad co-authored 3 patents in search, geo-tagging, and personalization, with Edmund Fish, Senior Vice President and General Manager at AOL. Following AOL, Brad helped raise $40M in venture funding for a contextual online advertising network. Prior to launching his business career, Brad was a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and served in the United States Army for five years, earning both Airborne and Ranger qualifications before retiring as Captain. He resides in Tribeca with his wife, Angie, his son, Elvis and his daughter, Scout.
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About Scout Ventures: Early-stage venture capital firm making the world a better, safer place by investing in frontier and dual-use technologies
Sly Lee
Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Emerge
Sly is a first generation American Entrepreneur & Scientist who is passionate about creating positive global impact through design and exponential technologies. He is co-founder & CEO of Emerge, a teleportation company with a vision to connect people’s emotions and feelings, on the path to ultimately “teleporting” our presence. He is a Forbes 30 Under 30 class of 2018 recipient, a Singularity University Global Solutions Program 2015 Alumnus, World Economic Forum Global Future Council Member for AR/VR, has presented at the Skoll World Forum, and can be found surfing Venice Breakwater most mornings.
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About Emerge: Emerge is a virtual connection company that develops a device where users can have virtual gatherings with tactile effects and interactions.
Mauricio Teran
Co-Founder & Head of Insights of Emerge
Mauricio Teran is the Co-Founder and the Head of Insights at Emerge.
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About Emerge: Emerge is a virtual connection company that develops a device where users can have virtual gatherings with tactile effects and interactions.
Isaac Castro
Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Emerge
Isaac Castro is an immigrant entrepreneur and co-founder & co-CEO of Emerge, a Los Angeles-based company bringing touch and emotion to the metaverse. Emerge’s mission is to empower those who are separated to feel more present when it is not possible to be physically together. Isaac believes in a future where technological progress brings us closer together and where nobody is left behind. He is an MIT Technology Review ‘Innovator Under 35’ recipient for the invention of a medical device for more effective cancer treatment. As a World Economic Forum’s Global Shaper, he actively worked on inspiring youth and fostering peace and reconciliation with former FARC guerrilla members in Colombia, work for which he was invited to participate and speak at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos. Isaac holds a master’s degree in telecommunications engineering, and he is a graduate of Google X and NASA sponsored Global Solutions Program at NASA Research Park in Silicon Valley.
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About Emerge: Emerge is a virtual connection company that develops a device where users can have virtual gatherings with tactile effects and interactions.
Ariel Imas
Co Founder of The Glimpse Group
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About : The Glimpse Group, a Virtual and Augmented Reality platform company, comprised of multiple VR and AR software & services companies.
Braden Ferrari
Co Founder of The Glimpse Group
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About : The Glimpse Group, a Virtual and Augmented Reality platform company, comprised of multiple VR and AR software & services companies.
Dj Smith
Co-Founder & Chief Creative Officer of The Glimpse Group
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About The Glimpse Group: The Glimpse Group, a Virtual and Augmented Reality platform company, comprised of multiple VR and AR software & services companies.
Maydan RothBlum
CFO & COO, Co-Founder of The Glimpse Group
Maydan Rothblum is CFO & COO at The Glimpse Group.
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About The Glimpse Group: The Glimpse Group, a Virtual and Augmented Reality platform company, comprised of multiple VR and AR software & services companies.
Alon Grinshpoon
Co-Founder & CEO of echo3D
Alon Grinshpoon is a Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at echoAR. Alon is a big-believer in augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) and is working on building the world’s best 3D-first content management system (CMS) and delivery network (CDN) to help companies scale their AR/VR solutions. Alon is a Java native-speaker with countless hours of programming in Java, Android, Unity, C#, C and Bash. Alon loves to create AR/VR apps, GUI and graphically design applications, open-source programs and API integration alongside his experience and passion for cloud and computer communication networks. Alon received his MSc in Computer Science from Columbia University’s School of Engineering and Applied Science specializing in computer graphics, virtual and augmented reality, and human-computer interaction. Alon wrote his thesis on an Augmented Reality Guidance System for Endovascular Surgery advised by Prof. Steven K. Feiner. Alon received his BSc as a double major in Computer Science and Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Tel Aviv University specializing in software engineering, computer networks, and cyber-security. During his studies, Alon served as a graduate researcher at the Computer Graphics and User Interfaces Laboratory of Columbia University. Alon also served as a research assistant and teaching assistant in the fields of computer networks and distributed cloud.
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About echo3D, vasAR Technologies: echo3D is a cloud platform for 3D/AR/VR that allows developers to quickly build and deploy 3D games, apps, and content.
Saswat Panda
Co-Founder, CTO, Head of Product of Livelike
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About Livelike: LiveLike is an entertainment company that provides on-demand sports VR media content.
Jérémie Lasnier
Co-Founder & Chief Creative Officer of Livelike
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About Livelike: LiveLike is an entertainment company that provides on-demand sports VR media content.
DJ Roller
Co-Founder of NextVR
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About Liquid Pictures, NextVR, YPO: NextVR is a technology company that captures and delivers live and on-demand virtual reality experiences.
Sergii Mashevskyi
Founder, CEO of Cameo FX
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About Cameo FX, Prope: Visual effects and animation company
Arjun Nagendran
Co-Founder & Chief Technology Officer of Mursion
Arjun completed his Ph.D. in Robotics from the University of Manchester, UK, specializing in landing mechanisms for Unmanned Air Vehicles. Prior to Mursion, he worked for several years as an academic researcher leading the ground vehicle robotic system for Team Tumbleweed, which was one of the six-finalists at the Ministry of Defense (UK) Grand Challenge. During his academic career, he has contributed to several projects and manuscripts including the development of a robot to explore the Great Egyptian Pyramid, adaptive robots to catch fast-moving objects, and robots that can grasp objects of any shape. The latter parts of his academic career were focused on developing camera-based computer vision systems to detect faults in railroad tracks, aerial video gathering platforms for action recognition, and the bridging of virtual reality and robotics to impact social behavior in people.
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About Mursion: Mursion, a virtual reality environment or platform where professionals practice and master the complex interpersonal skills.
Stephen Willey
Founder, CEO, Director of Innovega Inc.
Steve previously co-founded Microvision and Pro.Net Communications and served as President and Corporate Director. He served as CEO of AirIQ Inc., Business Director at CREO Inc. and General Manager of MDI International. During his career, he has developed a clear understanding of how to commercialize game-changing and disruptive new technologies. Steve holds Masters degrees in engineering and business.
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About Innovega Inc.: Innovega provides technology and reference designs for contact lenes enabled AR/MR/VR Smart Glasses
Rajeev Surati
Chairman and Founder of Scalable Display Technologies
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About Scalable Display Technologies, Skyline Nav AI: Designs, develops, and commercializes display technologies for immersive environments such as simulation, collaboration & Augmented Reality
Noam Levavi
Co-Founder and CEO of ByondXR
Noam Levavi is a serial entrepreneur with more than 20 years of innovations in user experience technologies, including several patents in the areas of personalized media delivery and user-interfaces. In 2017, Noam founded ByondXR, a retail-tech startup that empowers brands and retailers to improve sales and customer engagement through a new groundbreaking 3D visualization technology. Using ByondXR’s 3D Commerce Platform, brands can transform into the new digital era, creating experiences to enhance Wholesale, Merchandising and eComm that boost sales and improve efficiency. Prior to founding ByondXR, Noam founded and was the CEO of YCD Multimedia, a world leading on-site digital media provider, helping brands deliver personalized content to their customers, reaching more than 100 million people every month within thousands of venues worldwide, including some of the world’s most recognized brands such as Mercedes, Ferrari, Nike, Chanel, Hugo Boss, AT&T, Microsoft and Coca Cola. In 2008 Noam was honored to be featured by Forbes Israel as one of the country’s most influential young professionals. Prior to establishing YCD, Noam founded Netune, which provided network communication services and Intranet web applications for small and medium sized businesses. Before that, he served as a system communication manager in the Israeli Defense Force’s elite Intelligence Unit. He is a graduate of the Israeli Military Computing and Information Systems Institute. Noam loves sharing his experiences and have been the keynote speaker about consumer behavior and the evolution of digital experiences for The Economist, DLD, DSE and Digital Signage Investor, a guest speaker at Washington University, Parsons School of Design and IDC research college, and contributed to USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Frost & Sullivan and Platt Retail Institute. Being a long-time SciFi fan, Noam has been fascinated with advances in virtual reality and human-machine interfaces. He visualizes an emerging reality of digital enhancements to the human body and seamless brain-machine interfaces that extend our mental abilities into a complete and immersive sensory experience, forming new perceptions of reality.
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About ByondXR: ByondXR transforms eCommerce through immersive experiences that increase engagement, conversion and ROI
Zachary Levow
Co-Founder, Executive Vice President and CTO of Barracuda Networks
Zachary Levow is a pioneer in mail server development, remote access, and the free Internet space. As Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Barracuda Networks, he leads the innovation and development of Barracuda’s security and storage solutions. Prior to Barracuda, Levow was Co-founder and Vice President of Engineering for Affinity Path, a self-service, private label and profitable DSL/dial-up ISP with more than 4,000 partners. Prior to Affinity Path, he was Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Spinway Inc., the fastest growing ISP in history, reaching eight million customers in just eight months (acquired by Kmart Corporation). During his tenure at Spinway, Levow was the lead developer of the Spinway architecture, one of the world’s largest client server applications at that time. Also, he has worked as a software development and architectural software design consultant for clients such as Sun Microsystems, Computer Sciences Corporation, Cadence Design Systems, and Motorola Inc. He received a B.S. in mathematics and computer science from Carnegie Mellon University, and was named a 2007 Ernst & Young “Technology Entrepreneur of the Year for Northern California” award recipient.
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About Barracuda Networks: Barracuda is a provider of powerful, easy-to-use, affordable IT solutions for security and storage.
Sabrina Kemeny
President, Co-Founder of Tap Systems
Sabrina Kemeny is a cofounder of TAP, a high tech start-up that is changing the way people interact with the electronic world. Dr. Kemeny co-invented the camera-on-a-chip technology which revolutionized digital imaging and is at the core of every cell phone camera, while working for Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Subsequently, she was cofounder and CEO of Photobit Corporation, the company that successfully commercialized the fledgling CMOS sensor technology. After managing several rounds of equity financing and negotiating many strategic alliances with players such as Kodak, Intel and Hitachi, she oversaw the acquisition of Photobit to Micron Technology, Inc. • BS, MS and Ph.D in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University o Received the Helena Rubinstein “Outstanding Women in Science” award • Member of the technical Staff at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory o Co-Inventor of the CMOS active pixel image sensor technology: the Camera-on-a-Chip that revolutionized digital imaging and is at the core of every cell phone camera today o The United States Space Foundation inducted her into the Space Technology Hall of Fame • Co-Founder and CEO of Photobit Corporation, the industry-leading supplier of CMOS image sensors that was acquired by Micron Technology, Inc o Negotiated exclusive license for the JPL patent portfolio o Negotiated strategic alliances with companies such as Intel, Kodak and Hitachi o Managed equity financing and oversaw the Micron exit. • Business advisor to several high tech start-ups in the Los Angeles area and an angel investor with Tech Coast Angels.
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About Tap Systems: Tap Systems is a developer of a wearable Bluetooth keyboard designed to help users type by tapping fingers on any surface.
Pablo Quiroga
Co-Founder of Star Atlas
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About Fuelixir, Star Atlas: Star Atlas is a metaverse introducing a unique gaming experience by harnessing the power of traditional core game and blockchain mechanics.
Anthony Duca
Founder and CEO of Cavrnus
Anthony Duca is CEO and Founder at Cavrnus.
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About Cavrnus: Cavrnus is a software company that specializes in spatial collaboration via extended reality.
