Europe based Start-up, Timepath, is giving virtual reality experiences a more interactive and narrative feel.
Company: Timepath
Sector: Virtual Reality
Location: Lausanne (Switzerland) and Barcelona (Spain)
Regions Covered: Global
Founded By: Dr Joan Llobera
Are they rocket scientists? He’s an electrical engineer, which then turned into a virtual reality scientist, with cognitive science background. The core technology of Timepath was the result of his PhD.
Who are your major backers? Academia (EPFL, University of Barcelona), and a grant from the Hasler Foundation. For content production, Timepath also collaborates with the Artanim Foundation, in Geneva.
What’s your track record? Timepath has completed the first iteration of its toolset development and a small demo of content. In terms of public exposure, it was a finalist in the World Mobile Congress conference, where Timepath was presented publicly for the first time. It was also a finalist of the Brain Forum startup competition.
What do they say? N/A
What does this mean? N/A
What makes your company different to its competitors? We create virtual reality experiences where you can become a character inside a story unfolding blended in the gameplay. In other terms; we know how to create VR experiences that blend the best of both worlds: narrative like a movie, and interactive like a video game.
How could your company change the world? Virtual Reality experiences should feel like the best of both worlds: interactive like a video game, but narrative like a movie. This can have a profound impact in media, education and training.
Who do you compete with? In the field of virtual reality for entertainment, companies from the movie industry propose 360 videos (for example, www.jauntvr.com/, or more animation oriented, www.apelab.ch), but these experiences offer little interaction. Companies coming from video games propose immersive video games (survios.com/games/). But no company offers story-like interactive experiences in VR. In the field of innovative artificial intelligence for entertainment, rivaltheory.com proposes an interesting and transversal solution to deal with AI in video games and toys, but that does not address the current challenges faced in the field of interactive storytelling, even less storytelling in VR.
Who should be worried? Traditional content providers will have to hurry to adapt to VR content. The arrival of affordable VR hardware will be, no doubt, a major game-changer not only in video games, but in the media sector. The only event of comparable size in the last few years was the massive introduction of mobile phones into the global market. Major companies – Sony, Microsoft, Facebook, Samsung, etc- have already started positioning themselves.
If you could choose any investor globally, who would it be? Disney, or Lego – or both.
If you could poach any member of staff from any company in the world, who would it be? John Lasseter, artistic director of Pixar and Walt Disney animation studios.
