VR treadmill developer Virtuix has gone public, with its Class A common stock beginning trading on Nasdaq’s Global Market Tier today. The company’s stock market debut comes amid an industry-wide slowdown in consumer VR investment and spending on first-party content.
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Founded in 2013 by CEO Jan Goetgeluk, Virtuix originally launched on Kickstarter with the launch of the original Omni, raising $1.1 million from backers.
Although the company initially started with clear ambitions to enter the consumer market, market realities forced the company to enter the outdoor VR attraction space, forcing a major shift in business strategy.
Since then, the Austin, Texas-based company has raised more than $55 million in funding from major investors including Mark Cuban, Maveron, and Scout Ventures, with an additional $3.3 million in its latest crowdfunding campaign.
Virtuix still sells its “Arena” solution for enterprises, but the company has decided to make its next big bet by re-entering the consumer market with the release of Omni One in 2024. Omni One can be purchased as a full system (including Pico headset) for $3,500, and the bring-your-own-PC VR headset system costs $2,600.
In addition to listing on Nasdaq, trading under the ticker “VTIX,” Virtuix has secured an additional $11 million investment from Chicago Venture Partners and a $50 million conditional equity line of credit. The company plans to use the funds to expand sales of Omni-One.
“We’re just getting started,” Getgerk said. “In a world that explores increasingly photorealistic virtual worlds, what is missing is the ability to move naturally through those worlds. We have pioneered the technology that allows us to do that. Going public will give us access to capital to fund our growth and develop new products.”
my view
It’s an interesting time to go public for a consumer-focused VR company, but Meta is exiting the VR gaming space following a restructuring of Reality Labs and a reported 10% reduction in headcount. Granted, its focus is on high-end consumers, and there’s probably a lot of overlap with enterprise.
Still, Virtuix’s performance in the market will serve as a key data point as the next phase of consumer VR takes hold, the moment platform owners’ money all but stops flowing into the gaming ecosystem. After all, the company is currently one of the few publicly traded companies that specializes solely in VR hardware, rather than being a major platform holder.
That said, these are pretty tough times for XR Studios. With the rise of free-to-play multiplayer games on the medium’s dominant platform, Meta Quest 3, the money to invest in large-scale single-player content appears to be drying up. I’m also waiting to see what happens with Valve’s Steam Frame, which doesn’t yet have a price or a specific release date.
This comes along with the layoffs of a number of veteran XR studios, including Mighty Coconut (Walkabout Mini Golf) and Cloudhead Games (Pistol Whip), as well as the closure of three first-party meta studios: Sanzaru Games (Asgard’s Wrath), Armature Studio (Resident Evil 4 VR port), and Twisted Pixel (Deadpool VR).
