GREE Launches Investment Fund to Help Early-Stage Virtual Reality Companies Accelerate Growth

TOKYO and SAN FRANCISCO, April 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The virtual reality market is expected to hit $80B by 2025*, indicating that the industry today is in a ripe position for investment and growth. GREE (http://corp.gree.net/), a global mobile social company, today announced the company has created the GVR Fund: an investment fund that works with strategic investors to give early-stage virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) companies the opportunity to accelerate growth. The fund will be managed by San Francisco-based GREE VR Capital, LLC and will invest in gaming and non-gaming software and content companies. To date, the fund has invested in two companies: VRChat Inc., a platform that allows users to create, publish, and explore VR worlds with users around the world, and SPACES, Inc. In addition to GREE, Colopl VR Fund and mixi are also Limited Partners (LPs) of the fund.

GREE is no stranger to the virtual reality space. The company showcased its first VR title – Sarah and the Viper's Crown – at the Tokyo Game Show in 2015 and launched GREE VR Studio, its internal VR production studio shortly after that in November 2015.

The first game from the GREE VR Studio, Tomb of the Golems, will launch in April. Tomb of the Golems is an exciting shooter VR game that takes players on an epic journey through Egyptian ruins, and will ship soon at the Gear VR Oculus Store.

"The GVR Fund highlights GREE's commitment to the potential of virtual reality as an emerging platform. We not only see ourselves as a content developer but as an investor as well. We want to create the same values we successfully did in the past through investments in companies when the mobile platform took off," said Naoki Aoyagi, Senior Vice-President at GREE, Inc.

Teppei Tsutsui, Managing Director at GREE VR Capital, continued: "Our experience in working with major industry players such as Oculus, Samsung, HTC and Google prove that we have the expertise and relationships to make a significant impact in the market. In addition, our LPs are a selective group of strategic investors who can bring significant value to companies. We can't wait to see what unique experiences early-stage companies are creating, and to identify how the GVR Fund can help bring their ideas into the hands of consumers worldwide."

About GREE, Inc.

GREE (http://corp.gree.net/) is a global mobile social company with businesses that include social gaming, social media, advertising, licensing and merchandising, and venture capital. Established in December 2004, GREE created the world's first mobile social game in 2007, and today is a global leader in free-to-play, reaching audiences around the world with its portfolio of first-party and partner titles. GREE has studios in Tokyo, San Francisco, Berlin and Melbourne and is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (3632).

*Source: Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research

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