Tipatat Chennavasin (The VR Fund) on the Latest AR Industry Landscape

The Guest

Tipatat Chennavasin is the co-founder and general partner at The Venture Reality Fund, an investment firm focused on early-stage companies building immersive, spatial, and intelligent computing for consumer and enterprise.

Prior to life as a VC, Tipatat was the co-founder and CEO of mobile game startup Big Head Mode, Inc. that he sold to PlayFirst to focus on VR.

He also spent many years as a creative director or design director working with cutting edge interactive technologies, including computer vision, interactive surfaces, and gesture-based interactive displays.

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The Conversation

In this conversation, Titpatat shares one of his first experimentations with VR, and the impact it had on his life. He describes how he came to start a VR and AR-focused investment fund, and some of the insights he’s observed within the changing AR industry landscape.

One of those observations is about turnover among head-mounted display companies, and the potential of Hololens 2. He believes the increased usability of the Hololens 2 will open up more uses cases and drive better results during trials with enterprise customers.

Tipatat goes on to share his take on recent failures, successes, and near-term possibilities of AR.

A few of his portfolio companies that come up in the conversation include Beat Games (maker of Beat Saber), Varjo (high-end VR headset), Torch 3D (design & publish AR apps), PLNAR (computer vision for insurance), Vantage Point (anti-sexual harassment training), Phiar (AR navigation and object recognition) and Apprentice.io (guided instruction for lab workers). (Note: I am also an investor in Torch 3D and PLNAR.)

Jason McDowallVR, content creation, consumer, enterprise, AR smartglasses, investor