SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Avatour, the remote collaboration platform for site meetings, today announced a $2.9 million seed round led by Ulu Ventures. The funding will enable Avatour to scale its category-defining technology and expand into new markets internationally. Other participants in the round include Merus Capital, NTT Docomo Ventures, Plug & Play Ventures, and 500 Startups.
The Avatour platform combines real-world 360-degree capture, real-time communication, and optional VR/AR technology to immerse remote users in a location as if actually present. This combination of visual realism and effortless conversation results in a superior means of collaboration between remote users and on-site personnel, saving money while increasing productivity. Avatour’s cloud-based service utilizes a combination of proprietary software and off-the-shelf hardware to quickly deploy virtual meetings for up to 20 live viewers per session.
“Businesses conducted over 2 billion site meetings in 2019, from inspections to facility tours to site-specific training. While travel has always been expensive and inconvenient, the pandemic has emphasized the need for a more efficient option. Our unique and easy-to-deploy solution makes effective remote site meetings possible for the first time,” stated Avatour CEO and co-founder Devon Copley. “With the increased demand for virtual solutions over the past year, we’ve proven our business model and technology. This latest infusion of support enables us to double down on a platform that’s already making a huge impact for our customers worldwide.”
Since its commercial release in March 2020, Avatour has enabled thousands of remote site meetings, buoyed recently by the travel restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Avatour customers save up to 80 percent on travel costs, increasing productivity while reducing their carbon footprint. Current customers include the FAA, Thermo Fisher, Kellogg’s, and Black & Veatch.
“Working with Avatour’s technology has transformed Black & Veatch’s ability to engage with infrastructure clients around the world in just a few clicks,” said Ryan Pletka, Vice President, Innovation and Strategy at Black & Veatch. “Throughout the pandemic, our ability to provide a deeply immersive meeting experience — while remote — has been a game-changer, creating operational efficiencies and promoting collaboration between our clients and our professionals.”
“Avatour is a first-of-its-kind product offering,” noted Kevin Hoffberg, Venture Partner at Ulu Ventures. “We are big believers that their category-creating immersive collaboration technology offers companies significant cost savings, time efficiency, and scalability. While recent world events have elevated the need for this type of platform, we see virtual collaboration becoming the new normal for site meetings moving forward.”
“Avatour’s solution is changing how site meetings are conducted. They bring all participants into the same space without the complicated, costly travel logistics,” said David Rangel, General Partner at Merus Capital. “Avatour provides a powerful and practical application of technology that solves a real-world issue and provides immediate value to its customers.”
For more information on Avatour’s platform, please visit www.avatour.co.
About Avatour
Avatour is the remote collaboration platform for virtual site meetings. Combining full-motion 360° capture with real-time communication, Avatour provides remote users with full spatial context, enabling more effective collaboration with on-site personnel. Founded in 2018 by former Nokia OZO team leaders Devon Copley and Prasad Balasubramanian, Avatour is headquartered in Palo Alto, California. For more information, visit www.avatour.co.
About Ulu Ventures
Ulu Ventures is a top seed stage venture fund in Silicon Valley focused on IT startups. Ulu generates great financial results using a disciplined, repeatable decision-making process that analyzes risk-reward trade-offs and also reduces cognitive bias. Entrepreneurs in the current fund are quite diverse by industry standards and Ulu is dedicated to increasing diversity in both the entrepreneurial and investment communities. For more information, visit https://uluventures.com/.
