Austin—The WaveVR, which aims to connect fans with musicians and DJs in the virtual world, has raised $2.5 million in a seed round of funding.
Investors in the virtual reality music platform include Presence Capital and Rothenberg Ventures, both in San Francisco; RRE Ventures in New York; The VR Fund; and Seedcamp.
The funds will be used to further develop the WaveVR’s app, the beta of which is scheduled to be released later this year, the founders say.
The WaveVR works like this: Users, who must have a virtual reality headset like one produced by Facebook unit Oculus, download the app and are presented with a menu of concerts hosted by musicians or DJs. “This is an opportunity for the artists to reach all of their fans simultaneously, especially fans they previously couldn’t reach because they live in the middle of Russia and they don’t tour there,” says Aaron Lemke, the startup’s co-founder and an Austin musician.
The startup hasn’t yet decided what it will charge users for access to the concerts, but says downloading the app would likely be free.
It’s still early days for The WaveVR, but it does illustrate the proliferation of virtual reality into entertainment beyond gaming, where it is best known. In May, NextVR, a California virtual reality company that specializes in concerts and sports events, announced a partnership with Live Nation, the company that owns Ticketmaster and one of the largest concert promoters in the world.
“We want to build the connection between the artist and the fans,” Lemke says.
