Former Netflix, Google, Pixar, Dreamworks, YouTube, and Autodesk Executives Create Technology to Deliver Interactive Holographic Content to the World
Arcturus, the global software leader in the post-production and streaming of volumetric videos, announced a $5 million seed round led by BITKRAFT Ventures with participation from leaders in the sports, telecom, gaming, and music space including HBSE Ventures; NTT Docomo Ventures; Build Ventures; Co-Founder, Co-Chairman, and former Co-CEO of Riot Games, Marc Merril; and CEO of Atlantic Records, Craig Kallman. The funding will be used to scale the software development team, focus efforts on sales growth, and expand the product line with an emphasis on live streaming features.
Founded by an impressive management team with deep product, art, and science backgrounds derived from their collective years of innovating at Netflix, Autodesk, Pixar, Dreamworks, Google, YouTube and Uber, Arcturus is revolutionizing the immersive content experience across a range of verticals including e-commerce, music, sports, interactive media, and gaming.
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Volumetric video lets users consume live-action content in new ways, from viewing sports in holographic form, experiencing photorealistic virtual performances, engaging with interactive digital human assistants, and more immersive forms of social media and e-commerce, in which buyers can view and interact with products in 3D. With volumetric video, content is captured by an array of cameras and depth sensors that surround a subject to create a photorealistic model. These holograms are fully 3D and interactive, making them a natural fit for any spatial experience such as augmented or virtual reality.
“Volumetric technology is exciting for a simple reason: it starts with reality. Think about it: Most of today’s digital media—music, photos, or film—begin with capturing the real world. Thanks to Arcturus’ extraordinary technology, a future where you record yourself, your friends, or your environment with a LIDAR-enabled smartphone, and transport them into the next interactive and 3-dimensional social media post, product showcase, or video game is closer than ever,” commented Moritz Baier-Lentz, Partner at BITKRAFT Ventures.
Arcturus’ flagship product is HoloSuite, a SaaS platform for editing and distributing volumetric video, which consists of HoloEdit and HoloStream. The HoloSuite platform enables users to author, edit, and stream volumetrically captured performers and environments and can be interacted with on any desktop browser and smart mobile devices.
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HoloEdit is an optimized pipeline for the editing and processing of volumetric video and HoloStream is an adaptive streaming solution extending the same technology utilized by the streaming giants, Netflix and Amazon Video, to stream volumetric video directly to the viewer. HoloEdit enables content creators and game studios to easily edit and compress clips, then distribute them to third-party tools, including real-time game engines like Unity, Unreal, and more.
“Arcturus’ mission is to create a future where digital human holograms are captured from reality, customized and even interact with the viewer in real time. This can take the form of digital customer service agents, human avatars, virtual 3D concerts and fashion runways, or giving access to the perspectives of professional athletes in broadcast sports. With the backing of BITKRAFT Ventures, true leaders in games and XR investments, we are confident Arcturus will serve as a catalyst to enable widespread accessibility to volumetric video creation, enabling millions of users to create a new form of interactive content,” said Arcturus CEO, Kamal Mistry.
Arcturus worked with Docomo for the Docomo Open House in 2021, specifically featuring HoloSuite, including HoloStream, our adaptive bitrate streaming solution for volumetric video. Arcturus has supported numerous brand and celebrity activations including Verizon’s fan experience at Super Bowl LIV and Samsung’s 2020 phone release featuring popular Korean boy band BTS.
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