19 Explosive VR Companies & Startups In 2024
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Virtual reality (VR) has been an industry known largely for lofty promises and hype... but a little tangible transformation in our daily lives.
That said, the VR space is still going strong. Especially for niche use cases.
From construction to content creation to medicine and beyond, a new crop of VR companies are using VR to change the way we shop, entertain ourselves, and conduct business.
Read on for our list of the 19 promising VR startups that are aiming to fulfill virtual reality’s long-awaited promise.
1. VRChat
5-year search growth: 333%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2014
Location: San Francisco, CA
Funding: $95.2M (Series D)
What they do: VRChat is a social platform for virtual reality users to interact and socialize with each other. Their platform offers users a variety of customizable avatars and environments, allowing them to create unique virtual experiences.
With VRChat, users can connect with others from around the world and immerse themselves in a variety of virtual worlds and games.
2. Sandbox VR
5-year search growth: 736%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2016
Location: San Francisco, CA
Funding: $63M (Series B)
What they do: Sandbox VR is a VR company that provides a location-based virtual reality experience, where players can enter immersive virtual worlds and play games with their friends. Their platform offers a variety of customizable avatars and game scenarios, allowing players to fully immerse themselves in a virtual reality experience.
With Sandbox VR, players can enjoy a social and interactive VR experience, blurring the line between physical and virtual reality.
3. Somnium Space
5-year search growth: 300%
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2017
Location: London, England
Funding: $1.3M (Seed)
What they do: Somnium Space is a decentralized social VR platform that enables users to create, explore, and monetize their virtual experiences. Their platform allows users to build and customize their virtual worlds, buy and sell virtual land, and interact with other users in real-time.
Somnium Space allows users to fully immerse themselves in a social VR experience and build a virtual presence that can generate revenue through virtual land ownership and other monetization methods.
4. Vive
5-year search growth: 146%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2015
Location: Taoyuan City, Taiwan
Funding: Undisclosed
What they do: Vive is a tech company specializing in virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality (MR) experiences. Through their VR headsets, glasses, and accessories, the startup offers customers a full-body VR experience. Most notably, the startup has gained popularity because of the Vive Tracker. This handheld VR accessory allows users to track movement and bring real-world objects into the virtual universe with pinpoint accuracy.
5. OpenSpace
5-year search growth: -8%
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2017
Location: San Francisco, CA
Funding: $200.4M (Series D)
What they do: OpenSpace is a VR platform for construction and real estate professionals to collaborate and track progress on building projects. Their platform enables users to capture and track 360-degree imagery of construction sites in real-time, allowing for remote collaboration, documentation, and monitoring.
With OpenSpace, users can improve communication, reduce errors, and increase efficiency in the construction and real estate industries.
6. Dispelix
5-year search growth: 25%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2011
Location: Espoo, Finland
Funding: $56.1M (Series B)
What they do: Dispelix is a VR startup that develops and manufactures ultra-thin, waveguide displays for use in augmented reality (AR) devices. Their technology enables high-quality, low-power consumption displays that can be integrated into eyewear and other form factors, providing users with immersive AR experiences.
Dispelix's advanced display technology allows customers to create new AR applications and devices with improved performance and usability.
7. Labster
5-year search growth: 344%
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2011
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
Funding: $150.5M (Series C)
What they do: Labster is a VR platform for immersive science education. Their platform offers a variety of virtual science lab simulations, allowing students to conduct experiments and learn science concepts in a safe, engaging, and interactive environment.
Labster grants students access to high-quality science education from anywhere, and educators can offer hands-on lab experience without the need for physical lab facilities.
8. Breakroom
5-year search growth: 74%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2014
Location: Reykjavik, Iceland
Funding: $510K (Grant)
What they do: Breakroom aims to solve the problems of remote workplace design with their innovative VR technology. By turning compatible VR headsets into multi monitor systems, users can experience the virtual working world that more simulates the physical office.
9. The Virtual Reality Company
5-year search growth: 133%
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2014
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Funding: $25.1M (Series A)
What they do: The VR Company is another startup focusing on the content side of the space.
The Jurassic World VR Experience (based on Jurassic Park) is probably their most well-known example, featuring a realistic combination of physical movement and leading VR technology.
10. Polycam
5-year search growth: 1,088%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2021
Location: San Francisco, CA
Funding: $22M (Series A)
What they do: Polycam is a 3D scanning app available for iOS, web, and Android devices. The app can create 3D models of real spaces or virtual environments for immersive VR experiences. It uses a LiDAR sensor to scan open space and capture 360 photos. In February 2024, Polycam raised $18 million in Series A funding to " democratize 3D creation."
11. CGTrader
5-year search growth: 317%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2011
Location: Vilnius, Lithuania
Funding: $12.1M (Series B)
What they do: CGTrader is a 3D model marketplace for virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and computer graphics (CG) projects. Designers can upload their work for sale, and buyers can browse available models, communicate directly with model authors, bid on prices, and even request custom models through the platform. Currently, CGTrader has 8.9 million 3D designers and 100+ Fortune 500 clients using the platform.
12. WEVR
5-year search growth: -100%
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2010
Location: Venice, CA
Funding: $38.8M (Series B)
What they do: WEVR is aiming to be the premier VR content creation studio. Unlike other companies on our list, which focus more on VR technology, WEVR is centered around the stories being told inside of a user’s headset.
With creators like Jon Favreau on board, WEVR has been able to attract a large amount of funding as they look to scale.
13. Magic Leap
5-year search growth: -37%
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2010
Location: Plantation, FL
Funding: $3.5B (Series Unknown)
What they do: Magic Leap is among the most well-known virtual reality startups in existence today. Recently winning the award for VR’s top enterprise solution, Magic Leap provides leading wearable technology with their patented Dynamic Digitized Lightfield Signal. This tech provides a relatively realistic virtual reality experience with life-like augmented objects. Use cases range from medicine to corporate training and beyond.
14. Virtualitics
5-year search growth: 0%
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2015
Location: Pasadena, CA
Funding: $66.6M (Series C)
What they do: Virtualitics combines data visualization and data analysis with the power of virtual reality. Instead of users having to draw insights from typical Excel spreadsheets or tables, Virtualitics allows data to be manipulated in a virtual space.
Over 11 years of research by some of the brightest minds from CalTech and NASA, along with a team of data crunchers, has turned Virtualitics into an extremely attractive VR startup for many investors.
15. Merge Labs
5-year search growth: 100%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2014
Location: San Antonio, TX
Funding: $10.1M (Series Unknown)
What they do: Merge is an educational VR company, creating lifelike digital learning experiences that teach students using a traditional school curriculum. But instead of just reading about a Monarch Butterfly, Merge allows students to hold 3D digital objects of the insect.
16. AppliedVR
5-year search growth: 0%
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2015
Location: Van Nuys, CA
Funding: $71M (Series B)
What they do: With partnerships with esteemed medical institutions like the Cleveland Clinic, Boston Children’s Hospital, and Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, AppliedVR is bringing the power of virtual reality to chronic pain treatment.
Utilizing over 30 years of academic research and with a client base of over 30,000, with over 200 hospitals, AppliedVR is one of the early leaders in the space for the treatment of acute and chronic pain through technology.
17. Obsess
5-year search growth: 21%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2017
Location: New York, NY
Funding: $13.9M (Non-Equity Assistance)
What they do: Obsess is targeting retail as the next great frontier of VR. Using Obsess’s technology, retailers ranging from Coach to AT&T to Anheuser Busch are creating virtual experiences and activities for their customers.
The core product is a 360 virtual experience customized to act as digital stores, showrooms (for clothing brands), or even a full retail store experience.
18. Holoride
5-year search growth: 200%
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2018
Location: Munich, Germany
Funding: $10.8M (Seed)
What they do: Holoride’s vision is to turn everyday car rides into virtual theme parks. By combining standard navigational data with car data plus virtual reality technology, the experience is both physical and visceral.
Car sickness isn’t a concern either. With little-to-no latency between what a user sees and feels, the experience is a seamless virtual reality journey to provide an exciting alternative to reading a book or watching a movie on a long car ride or trip.
19. Relax VR
5-year search growth: -100%
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2016
Location: San Francisco, CA
Funding: Undisclosed (Convertible Note)
What they do: Relax VR combines meditation with an immersive virtual reality experience to help clients reach a calm and relaxed state.
Instead of staffing a full spa, Relax aims to let their headset do much of the rejuvenation work that a human would normally be required for. Tranquil landscapes or guided meditations allow the user to have a complete experience of relaxation and engage all of their senses simultaneously.
Conclusion
Virtual Reality has the potential to transform dozens of industries, and even the way we live our daily lives.
From medicine to real estate to entertainment, virtual reality is just getting started. Even though it may never become a mainstream tech, the companies here prove that the industry has the potential to thrive in many industries and niche use cases.
And the VR startups on this list represent some of the best attempts to create value in the space.
