VRVCA Successfully Holds First Members Meeting, Uniting the Global Investment Community in Fostering Innovation in the VR Industry

BEIJING, Sept. 26, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The Virtual Reality Venture Capital Alliance (www.VRVCA.com) founded by HTC Corporation ('HTC'), the pioneer in innovative smart and VR technologies, and the world's top venture capital firms, successfully held the first members meeting on September 20 in Beijing, bringing together the world's leading investors of the VR space with 18 of the most innovative startups solving the most pressing issues in the VR industry.

The majority of VRVCA members attended the meeting, including renowned venture capital investors in Asia such as IDG Capital Partners, Legend Capital, Matrix Partners China, Redpoint Ventures and Sequoia Capital China. 18 VR teams from the world demonstrated their products and technologies at the meeting, 12 of them were from China and 6 were from North America. Apart from 6 game related companies, the projects demonstrated also involved 3 VR content, 3 enterprise software and 6 hardware/technologies, which are currently the most popular areas.

Among all 18 attending teams, 10 of them were top applicants from a pool of approximately 600 applications globally, and 8 teams were selected from the first batch of 33 Vive X companies. As an integral component of VRVCA, the Vive X Global VR Accelerator Program (www.vive.com/cn/vivex) is funded by HTC with more than US$100 million to help cultivate, foster and grow the global VR ecosystem. Teams interested in applying for Vive X Batch-2 are advised that applications will open in November 2016. Vive X hopes to attract more of the world's best VR startups as it plans to expand to more locations in Asia Pacific and Europe in 2017.

The VRVCA itself is an innovation in the investment industry by creating a cooperative working model between so many top investors, targeted at accelerating growth of the rising VR industry. VRVCA will foster long-term growth in the VR industry through identifying, sharing and investing in the world's most innovative and impactful VR technology and content companies, and bring in capital to help them with actual commercialization and fast track them on a path to profitability.

"The feedback from the VRVCA members who attended have all been extremely positive. They said the breadth and quality of the teams were the best they have seen at any such event in the industry," said Alvin W. Graylin, China Regional President of Vive, HTC, "The selected teams are solving real industry issues with truly innovative solutions or compelling content. I would not be surprised if most of these firms close their new round of funding before the next VRVCA meeting in November."

"The first VRVCA Meeting brought quite a few high-quality deals with exciting demos and the problems these companies are tackling are hitting the real industry needs," said James Zhang, Executive Director of Shanda Group.

"Congratulations to Alvin and the VRVCA team for bringing VR technologies one step closer to reality. It is our greatest honor to be part of the alliance, and we are looking forward to participating in the San Francisco meeting ahead," said Edward Liu, Partner at WI Harper.

"Three months ago I tried Vive for the first time at their Beijing office, and I believed VR was a new world that we can do lots of fun with. Three months later, I come to this building again with a recognized product and become the first batch of VRVCA participants. It is a dream come true to talk with the top investors and startups from all over the world," said Crystal Li, CEO of Light Digital.

Nikhil Jain, Co-founder and CEO of ObEN, Gabriele Sorrento, Mindesk CEO, and many other leaders of the teams expressed their excitement of becoming part of the Vive ecosystem, hoping to achieve even better success, through the investment as well as technical platforms built by HTC Vive.

VRVCA currently comprises of 37 top investors in the world representing more than US$12 billion of total investible capital for VR projects around the world to accelerate the entrepreneurship and innovation in the global VR industry. In the future as the VRVCA membership grows together with its total investible capital, the investment opportunities it offers to startups will increase substantially. Those interested in pitching at the next VRVCA meetings in San Francisco in November 2016 can apply through the website (http://www.vrvca.com/submit).

About the Vive Virtual Reality System

Vive is a first-of-its-kind virtual reality system developed in partnership by HTC and Valve. Designed from the ground up for room-scale VR, Vive allows true-to-life interactions and experiences thanks to an adjustable headset displaying stunning graphics, two wireless controllers with HD haptic feedback and 360˚ absolute motion tracking. For a convenient and safe experience, Vive incorporates essential functionality from your phone and features a front facing camera that blends physical elements into the virtual world. Working in concert, this system immerses you visually, physically and emotionally in the virtual world. For more information on Vive, please visit www.vive.com.

About HTC

HTC Corporation aims to bring brilliance to life. As a global innovator in smart mobile and virtual reality devices and technology, HTC has produced award-winning products and industry firsts since its inception in 1997, including the critically acclaimed HTC One and HTC Desire lines of smartphones, and is now leading the VR industry with the Vive line of products. The pursuit of brilliance is at the heart of everything we do, inspiring best-in-class design and game-changing mobile and virtual reality experiences for consumers around the world. HTC is listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE: 2498). www.htc.com.

SOURCE HTC Vive

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