virtual reality startup Sandbox VR raising a$37 million series
B round sandbox, VR is a location based VR
company, a space that was hit hard during the
pandemic sandbox was no exception, eventually being forced to
file for bankruptcy. Well now the company is emerging
from the pandemic with a fresh round of funding and
plans to open new retail locations around the world.
So here now to talk about all of this and
more is the ceo of sandbox, VR steve Zhao
, so what sandbox offers is a full body VR
experiences where friends can come to our physical spaces and
in it, they can become anyone and go anywhere
. So what makes us different say from a lot
of other VR uh technology is like in other situations
like we put on a headset, you can see
a floating arms and you don't have like, you
know your limits, so you know that you're still
inside br And what we try to do is create
um you know, very realistic experiences, like you
can literally put your hand on your friend's shoulder,
you can bet in high five people forget her inside
VR Academic feels like real life. That's so crazy
. I was, I was looking at your website
. All right, so if somebody was interested in
going to one of your locations um and play one
of your games, how would you describe the experience
? What is it like for customers? It would
be like being inside a movie where you and your
friends are the stars, wow, what is your
most popular experience? I would have to say It's
the first one which is called Deadwood Mansion is a
zombie for experience. Um but it's not just about
shooting zombies. Uh you know, in order to
win friends would have to uh collaborate and communicate and
there's a lot of teamwork that's involved. So can
you tell us a bit about the technology? Um
and and the games that your company has developed,
the technology that we created is pretty much all software
and the hardware that we buy, like the Oculus
or HP back, I got off the shelf,
so we create a software layer architecture that allows people
to play in very confined environment and um it is
extremely difficult to do, especially using wireless. Um
but you know, it is how we were able
to get our, you know, the outcome that
we get. Why was Andresen Horowitz the right partner
for this new funding. And how do you plan
on using the money? Yeah. And Teresa is
also practiced for Sirius A and I think the,
you know, for them is the future of what
we can do, which is to essentially um you
know, become the new movies and over time as
we create experiences that are online and interconnected. You
know, we do want to be what we could
call up or metaphors. So the way we use
the money is pretty much report, it's uh we
use it to expand new locations um to build a
new content, to develop a sDK for publishing and
also to improve our core technology so that one day
we can create these online experiences. The pandemic of
course changed everything in particular. It hit location based
virtual reality startups very hard enforced. Many to just
close down sandbox VR filed for bankruptcy. I know
you guys laid off about 80% of your employees,
what are you seeing now? How is your company
position for whatever type of of life we're gonna have
post pandemic. What we're seeing now is this incredible
rebound? All the locations are open, people want
to go out and sandbox is this great destination or
you know friends and family to come in and play
together and kind of where we go from here is
um you know, with wireless becoming more advanced,
we can create better experiences where it can be more
wireless and that kind of goes into our future vision
, which is how can you can experience where the
moment someone walks into a sandbox space, they can
basically embody their virtual reality avatar. The metaverse,
which you mentioned has recently been the talk of the
tech world facebook, parent company, meta Disney Microsoft
all saying that they're planning to build their own,
what are your thoughts on the metaverse and how could
it change virtual reality gaming? Yeah, I do
think that metaverse is used a little bit too much
, but I do understand the application of what encapsulate
, which is a lot, it's basically having these
interoperable, like persistent online world are communicating with one
another. Um, and you know, kind of
where we fit in is, you know, we
want to be one of those interfaces to access online
world. You can get it from your phone,
laptop of VR headset, but wouldn't be great.
You can just walk into physical space, going into
a courtroom and you can basically be the character that
you built into your virtual. All right, our
thanks there as steve Zhao the ceo of sandbox VR
for that interview.