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Disney is going all in on virtual reality.
The media giant led a $65 million round for the cinematic virtual reality company, Jaunt. Although the VR company is headquarted in Palo Alto, a large portion of the funding will be used to expand their new Los Angeles studio.
The company originally focused on creating VR technology but the LA studio, announced earlier this year, is focused on developing and producing live-action virtual reality experiences primarily using their recently unveiled cinematic VR camera, NEO.
In April, three former LucasFilm executives joined Jaunt to lead the studio. One of which, David Anderman, helped facilitate LucasFilm's sale to Disney, a relationship that assumably played a role in Jaunt's funding.
“When Jaunt launched a little over two years ago, VR was the domain of a few enthusiasts like us,” said David Anderman, Jaunt’s Chief Business Officer in a statement. “Fast forward to today, with the ability to view VR content on any current smartphone, and a half dozen head mounted displays launching in the next 12 months, the addressable number of users will instantly be in the millions, and quickly grow from there."
Los Angeles' VR content industry has been growing rapidly in recent years, highlighted by Wevr's $10 million round in July. But with Disney's entering the VR content industry, the market is now primed to expand.
The industry has drawn several parallels to the 3D film industry of the early 2000's. Many people had concerns that movie-goers wouldn't buy in to a new form of content consumption, but Disney's wide network and advancements in technology were able to make 3D films a standard in every theater by the end of the decade. If VR headset sales meet expectations, we will likely see a similar trend in VR content distribution.
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