Reykjavík, Iceland-based Quest Portal, a startup that specialises in developing tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs), announced on Thursday, October 19, that it has secured $7.6M (approximately €7.1M) in funding. 

The investment comes from notable investors, including:

• Bing Gordon, the Founder of Electronic Arts
• Rahul Vohra, the Founder & CEO of Superhuman
• Icelandic storytelling luminaries, including Hilmar Veigar Pétursson, Birgir Ragnarsson, Sigurdur Arnljotsson, and Lakestar’s Mika Salmi & Beatrice Aliprandi

The company says it will use the funds to further develop its platform and democratise the TTRPG space, making it more accessible. Quest Portal says its early access launch was met with an overwhelming response. 

The community has grown to 10,000 players, playing over 140,000 games, encouraging the team to expand the platform further.

Besides funding, the Icelandic company also introduced “Quest Portal Pro,” a subscription service designed to improve the TTRPG experience. 

Quest Portal Pro features Quest Portal Assistant, a Game Master companion that simplifies various tasks such as drafting location ideas, creating NPC backstories, encounters, and more. 

According to the company, this subscription will provide support for popular TTRPGs like Dungeons & Dragons and Call of Cthulhu, aiming to elevate the tabletop gaming experience to new heights.

What is Quest Portal?

Quest Portal is a virtual tabletop (VTT) for playing TTRPGs on desktop and mobile devices. 

“Our mission is to increase creativity, empathy, and collaboration worldwide by making TTRPGs more social and accessible. We will achieve that by getting three things right. First, we help people get into character and the right mood for role-playing. Second, we augment their stories with delightful tools and AI in all the right places; generative art, helpful prose, and great content. Third, we bring people together by making sharing and spectating a fantastic experience,” says the company on its website. 

The platform offers innovative features, allowing users to dive into thrilling adventures with friends. 

Quest Portal focuses on players seeking an immersive experience while playing tabletop role-playing games.

Helsinki-based Metacore Games, a mobile game developer, announced that it has acquired animation and illustration studio PiñataHEL Oy, also known as Piñata, by purchasing all of its shares for an undisclosed amount. 

Metacore and Piñata have been working closely since the release of Metacore’s debut game, Merge Mansion, in 2020. The acquisition enhances Metacore’s position as one of Europe’s rapidly growing mobile game companies known for crafting narrative-driven games. 

It also helps level up the company’s creative storytelling and augment its in-house capacity for top-notch marketing production.

“Our mission is to create entertainment with our games but also with our marketing and community building,” says Mika Tammenkosk, CEO of Metacore. 

“Piñata brings us not only animation skills and capabilities but creative storytelling both for our games and marketing. Piñata’s experience of working with Merge Mansion as well as some of the most popular mobile games and entertainment brands in the world makes them an extremely strong addition to our team,” adds Tammenkoski. 

Metacore’s milestones

In 2022, Metacore generated €129M in revenue with over 180 professionals on board. The company also secured €180M in funding from gaming company Supercell, becoming a part of its portfolio.

The year 2023 has marked significant milestones for the game studio. They welcomed approximately 80 new team members, initiated a global campaign featuring Pedro Pascal, introduced the Mansion in Merge Mansion, and celebrated surpassing 50 million downloads for the game. 

Last week, Metacore announced the opening of its first expansion beyond Helsinki in Berlin. The company says it chose Berlin due to the city’s robust gaming environment, vibrant tech, entertainment and creative community.

Metacore says it is currently working on several new games; some are still in the planning phase, while others are close to their release dates. Each game is developed to fit the market of mobile games. 

Piñata as a ‘creative storytelling partner’

Helsinki-based Piñata boasts a talented collective of illustrators, animators, and VFX experts. They specialise in delivering world-class visual solutions to a diverse clientele, catering to global brands in the gaming, marketing and entertainment sectors, including TV, print, web and mobile.

Piñata’s work is distinguished by its innovative pre-production efforts, blending skills and techniques that range from traditional drawing and 2D animation to sophisticated 3D photorealism. 

Some of its works include the games Clash of Clans, Eternal Dragons and Edge of War. It is also a creative partner and art producer for video gaming companies such as Zynga, Housemargue and SuperCell.

“Piñata has grown from visual producer to a creative storytelling partner,” says Piñata co-founder and CEO Sari Tani. 

“We have been involved in creating the story of Merge Mansion from the beginning, and now we have the opportunity to deepen the collaboration with future new games, too,” Tani adds.

Stockholm-based virtual reality (VR) game developer and publisher Fast Travel Games announced on Tuesday that it has raised €3.7M in a round of funding led by Handelsbanken Fonder, with existing investors Industrifonden, Brightly Ventures, Creades, and Inbox Capital also participating. 

The new investment will support Fast Travel Games’ development of new IP for VR platforms and its publishing initiatives. The studio is working on Mannequin, its first original IP in four years, its first-ever multiplayer game, and an unannounced title.

Fast Travel Games is a VR-exclusive games publisher and developer led by industry-leading veterans. The studio released several highly-rated VR titles, such as Apex Construct, The Curious Tale of the Stolen Pets, Wraith: The Oblivion – Afterlife, and more..

“The VR games market continues to grow at a steady pace, and with the introduction of the PSVR2 and the Quest 3 this year and the Apple Vision Pro around the corner, we’re confident this growth will continue,” says Oskar Burman, CEO and co-founder of Fast Travel Games. 

“We now have twelve games on the market, and we’re just about to launch our most ambitious game yet – Vampire: The Masquerade – Justice. We also saw our revenues grow 70 per cent last year to 5M+ USD, and our strong growth continues this year. With this new investment, we’re in a solid position to capitalise on this new exciting gaming frontier,” adds Burman.

Potentials in the VR market

The gaming market’s global virtual reality (VR) is expected to grow from €7.47B billion in 2021 to €50.42B in 2028, at a CAGR of 31.4 per cent. Fortune Business Insights reports that this growth is driven by gamers’ rising adoption of advanced VR hardware and accessories.

One of the newest VR hardware and accessories was the Apple Vision Pro, announced at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June 2023. The device lets users switch between augmented reality (AR) and VR experiences with a simple dial turn. 

The significant market potential also drives more start-up companies entering the market to create innovative software and content offerings. Technology developments in 5G, gaming content and cloud-based gaming are also the main drives for the growth.

“The VR space continues to see impressive growth, and Fast Travel Games is well positioned to lead that charge in the coming year and beyond,” says Christian Brunlid, investment manager at Handelsbanken Fonder. 

“Their commitment to fantastic VR gaming experiences has already earned them impressive success and a strong reputation in their field. Handelsbanken Fonder is excited to help move them into the next phase of their journey as this rapidly evolving industry progresses,” adds Brunlid.

The latest partnership with Moonhood

On the publishing side, Fast Travel Games recently announced a partnership with MoonHood, a new studio from the creators of games like Lost in Random, to develop a dark and thrilling new adventure. 

Based in Gothenburg, Sweden, MoonHood aims to “immerse players in strange worlds handcrafted in actual clay, cardboard, and what have you,” according to the studio’s website.

MoonHood has hired a team of sculptors and miniature painters to create physical objects for the game, which is currently unnamed. The sculptures will be 3D scanned and animated in Blender and other engines. The game is slated for release on consoles, PC, and VR headsets, but the exact platforms have yet to be announced.

In a partnership announcement video, MoonHood revealed that the studio works with a second unnamed partner. The studio’s website says the project is funded by “one of the biggest platforms.”

Fast Travel’s head of Publishing, Patrick Liu, says, “By partnering with the talented creatives at MoonHood, we can continue to work toward [our] goal by creating a surreal game not yet seen on any platform.” 

“MoonHood’s team of veteran storytellers and artists have captured fantastical ideas from the imagination and brought them stunningly to life with real clay sculptures, making it a must-play game,” he adds. 
The Fast Travel team plans to publish Project Demigod, one of VR’s first full-fledged superhero sandboxes, next year.

Utrecht-based Mingle Sport, a sports tech startup, announced on Friday that it has secured €1.25M funding from a seed round led by angel investors and Dutch multinational Rabobank.

Mingle Sport says it will utilise the funds to scale its operations on a global level and launch its premium AI product for coaches and players.

“We’re very excited to open our app to the international grassroots football community,” says Freek Bijl, co-founder of Mingle Sport. 

“We’ve seen a huge need from teams in pro-level stats and content, with low barriers to entry in terms of setup and cost. Our goal is to provide a solution with our app, and help the enormously underserved community of grassroots athletes out there,” adds Bijil. 

Mingle Sports: Grassroots football app

Founded by Nicky Rog and Freek Bijl in 2021, Mingle Sport is a grassroots football app that helps football teams track their performance, share interesting highlights, and manage their team. 

The app was launched as a public beta in the Netherlands in the summer of 2022, and used by thousands of teams over the course of the season. 

Following the positive responses, the Dutch startup has now opened up its app to a global audience and is available to use in Europe, North America, Mexico, Australia, and New Zealand.

The app is free to download and available on iOS & Android, with a premium offering arriving in early 2024. The company is planning to introduce premium AI-powered features for grassroots football teams by 2024. 

“We want teams and clubs to really own their content and data. So they can create value from it. We’re doing some very interesting experiments with clubs around various pricing mechanisms and will start to introduce premium products in 2024,” says the founding duo. 

The features are expected to offer unique stats & content for teams, as well as additional benchmarking and automatic video highlights.

Nicky Rog, co-founder of Mingle Sport, says, “We want to offer coaches and players a product for any team that wants to get started with sports tech. Not only top-tier amateur athletes, but also regular athletes and enthusiasts. That’s why we use devices people already own, starting with their mobile phones.”

Mingle Sport claims that it is regularly compared with Strava, the popular running & cycling app. The Dutch startup offers a similar combination of technology to track performance and community to share and compare.

“It’s great to be compared to an app such as Strava”, says Bijl. “Similar to them, our mobile app allows teams to start having more insights and fun with their performance. Our goal is to eventually integrate with the best sports tech solutions out there across a variety of ball sports.”

For decades, Cupertino tech giant Apple has been at the forefront of innovation, revolutionising the technology industry with iconic products like the iPhone, Mac, and iPad.

In recent times, however, industry experts have noted that Apple’s product updates have been more incremental in nature, lacking the groundbreaking advancements seen in previous releases. 

As a result, Apple faced significant pressure and criticism for supposedly lagging behind in terms of innovation.

In response to these mounting concerns, Apple has taken proactive measures to tackle its innovation crisis, leading to the introduction of the Apple Vision Pro.

WWDC 2023

At the Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) 2023 held on Monday, June 5, Apple unveiled its much-hyped mixed reality headset, Vision Pro. 

True to its nature, Apple has taken a distinct approach by labelling Vision Pro as a spatial computer rather than explicitly categorising it as an augmented reality (AR) device. 

According to Apple, Vision Pro aims to “seamlessly blend digital content with the physical world, while allowing users to stay present and connected to others.”

Breakthrough design

The Vision Pro boasts a breakthrough design, featuring a singular piece of three-dimensionally formed laminated glass for its enclosure, seamlessly transitioning into a custom aluminium alloy frame that wraps around the user’s face. 

To ensure a precise fit, the Light Seal is composed of soft textile material available in various shapes and sizes. It possesses flexibility, allowing it to flex to the user’s face contours. 

Moreover, flexible straps are employed to keep the audio close to the user’s ears. 

Meanwhile, a Head Band, knitted as a single three-dimensional piece, is available in multiple sizes. This Head Band provides cushioning, breathability, and stretch, maximising comfort during extended use.

Unlock with your eyes

The Vision Pro incorporates Optic ID, the company’s new authentication system, to unlock the device. 

Optic ID works by analysing the user’s iris under various invisible LED light exposures. It compares it to the enrolled Optic ID data protected by the Secure Enclave.

A user’s Optic ID data is fully encrypted, not accessible to apps, and never leaves their device, meaning it is not stored on Apple servers. 

According to Mike Rockwell, Apple’s VP of technology development, the system could detect iris differences even between identical twins. 

Streams images within 12 milliseconds

Apple Vision Pro features an ultra-high-resolution display system that uses micro-OLED technology to pack 23 million pixels into two displays, each the size of a postage stamp, with wide colour and high dynamic range. 

The device is powered by an Apple M2 chip with a brand-new R1 chip that processes input from 12 cameras, five sensors, and six microphones in real time. 

The Cupertino-tech giant claims that R1 streams new images to the display within 12 milliseconds, 8x faster than blinking an eye.

The tech giant has partnered with Zeiss to create custom optical inserts that magnetically attach to lenses for glasses wearers. 

Experience spatial audio

“An advanced spatial audio system is core to Apple Vision Pro,” says Apple. 

The Vision Pro houses two individually amplified drivers inside each audio pod to deliver personalised spatial audio based on the user’s own head and ear geometry.

The company said it developed audio raytracing for spatial audio. Vision Pro analyses a room’s acoustic properties, including the physical materials, to adapt and match sound to the user’s space.

World’s first spatial operating system

Apple Vision Pro runs on visionOS, the world’s first spatial operating system. 

Controller-free Vision Pro can be controlled with eyes, hands, and voice. Users need to simply look at an element, tap their fingers together to select and use the virtual keyboard or dictation to type.

Built on the foundation of macOS, iOS, and iPadOS, visionOS features a three-dimensional interface that frees apps from the boundaries of a display so they can appear side-by-side at any scale. 

The company claims that apps can be moved anywhere, scaled to the right size, react to room lighting, and even cast shadows.

Stay connected with EyeSight

EyeSight, a feature of Vision Pro, helps users remain connected to those around you. When someone approaches a user wearing a VisionPro, the display becomes transparent revealing their eyes to them. 

When a person approaches someone wearing Vision Pro, the device feels transparent — letting the user see them while also displaying the user’s eyes. 

When a user is immersed in an environment or using an app, EyeSight gives visual cues to others about what the user is focused on.

Pricing

Apple Vision Pro starts at $3499 (approximately €3,267), and will be available early next year on apple.com and at its Store locations in the U.S., with more countries coming later next year.

Amsterdam-based Wintor, a location-based Augmented Reality (AR) provider, announced on Monday that it is all set to launch its Augmented Reality (AR) Tour creator app in the AppStores and Play Store for iOS and Android users, respectively. 

The Dutch startup has also rolled out six Augmented Reality Tours in the Netherlands.

The platform will be launched on November 28, 2022, during the Immersive Tech Week (ITW) at De Doelen in Rotterdam, Netherlands.

What does Wintor solve?

Even though AR (Augmented Reality) is becoming increasingly integrated into organisations because of developments like Virtual Reality (VR) and the Metaverse, it can still be challenging to produce a professional AR tour of a facility, city, or museum. 

Some common challenges include a lack of AR-specific content creation tools and the high cost of AR hardware. Additionally, it can be difficult to find AR experts who can develop an engaging and educational experience that meets the organisation’s specific needs.

And here’s where Wintor comes into play and makes the entire process easy. 

Wintor: What you need to know

Founded by Jaap Gielink in 2021, Wintor provides an AR platform that helps people create AR tours 100x faster than traditional methods without any help.

Jaap Gielink says, “Augmented reality tours have unlimited applications across various industries. However, creating an AR tour before today’s launch was difficult. With our platform and app available on smartphones (android and iOS), users can easily upload their content and access a library of 3D models. By dragging and dropping their content on the real world, any person with no prior experience can easily create an AR tour 100x faster than a full team using conventional methods.”

The Amsterdam-based startup offers a simple app where users can drag and drop their content. Wintor says the app’s intuitive algorithm recognises different objects in the environment and uses them as markers for a quick and seamless AR tour. 

According to the Dutch company, users can create, save and share AR tours within 15 minutes without coding or markers.

Jaap Gielink adds, “Traditional AR tours are created by a team of unity programmers and animators using 3D models and often use markers such as images or QR codes at the location. The entire process can take days or even multiple weeks to create a tour, only to find glaring discrepancies in the tour, which means wasted time and money. Wintor eliminates these factors by allowing the average tech user to create an AR tour within 15 minutes. This convenience can help city marketing departments, museums, and organisations to truly refine their tours and use the art of visual storytelling as a marketing tool.”

The platform enables government and private organisations in the Netherlands to create immersive and captivating AR tours. 

For example, the marketing team for the city of Utrecht (NL) used Wintor to create an AR tour of their city. 

The Dutch National Military Museum based at airbase Soesterberg has also used Wintor to create a complete augmented reality tour of specific aeroplanes and machines.

The company claims to have beta-tested its product for several months with 300+ creators worldwide, including Japan, the USA, Israel, India, Indonesia, and the EU.

After Meta’s Giphy acquisition, the European Commission announced on Tuesday that it has opened an “in-depth investigation” into Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard for $68.7B. 

The Commission has concerns that the proposed acquisition may reduce competition in the markets for the distribution of console and personal computers (‘PCs’) video games and PC operating systems. 

The Commission has set a deadline of 90 working days, until 23 March 2023, to make a decision.

The investigation

The Commission’s preliminary investigation suggests that Microsoft has the ability to foreclose rivals in the console video game market by preventing them from distributing Activision Blizzard’s games on their consoles. 

EU regulators have also considered Microsoft’s potential to withhold access to multi-game subscription services and cloud game streaming services after acquiring Activision Blizzard. 

“Such foreclosure strategies could reduce competition in the markets for the distribution of console and PC video games, leading to higher prices, lower quality, and less innovation for console game distributors, which may, in turn, be passed on to consumers,” says EU. 

The Commission will now conduct an in-depth investigation into the effects of the transaction to determine whether its initial competition concerns are confirmed.

The acquisition

Activision Blizzard is a publicly listed company headquartered in Santa Monica, California, US. The US company is active as a developer and publisher of games for PCs, consoles, and mobile devices, and a distributor of games for PCs.

The investigation announcement comes months after Redmond giant Microsoft announced the acquisition of Activision Blizzard in January earlier this year. 

With this acquisition, Microsoft will become the world’s third-largest gaming company by revenue, behind Tencent and Sony.

The planned acquisition includes iconic franchises from Activision Blizzard, and King studios like Warcraft, Diablo, Overwatch, Call of Duty, and Candy Crush, in addition to global eSports activities through Major League Gaming. 

Besides revenue, the acquisition will bolster Microsoft’s Game Pass portfolio as the company plans to launch Activision Blizzard games into Game Pass, reaching a new milestone of over 25 million subscribers. 

With Activision Blizzard’s nearly 400 million monthly active players in 190 countries and three billion-dollar franchises, this acquisition will make Game Pass one of the industry’s most compelling and diverse lineups of gaming content. 

Upon close, Microsoft will have 30 internal game development studios and additional publishing and esports production capabilities.

Meta, the parent company of social media giant Facebook, hosted Meta Connect 2022, its annual developer conference for VR and Oculus hardware platform on Tuesday, October 11. At the conference, Meta made various announcements, from unveiling Meta Quest Pro and partnerships with Microsoft, Adobe, and Accentures to avatars getting legs. 

Here are the most important announcements Meta and its partners made during Meta Connect 2022.

Meta Quest Pro unveiled

Meta‘s most anticipated mixed reality headset, Meta Quest Pro (previously codenamed Project Cambria), made its official debut. Priced at $1,499, the headset is now up for pre-order and will be available for purchase from October 25 in 22 countries. The Meta Quest Pro box includes the headset, Meta Quest Touch Pro controllers, stylus tips, partial light blockers, and a charging dock.

The mixed-reality headset features a new optical stack with several layers of thin pancake lenses replacing Fresnel lenses, which was seen in Meta Quest 2. 

Meta says the pancake optics fold light several times over, reducing the depth of the optical module by almost half, providing clear and sharp visuals.

The LCDs utilise local dimming and quantum dot technology to provide richer and more vivid colours. The company says it has developed a local dimming tech that can control more than 500 LED blocks independently, giving the displays 75% more contrast.

Meta Quest Pro offers 37 per cent more pixels per inch and 10 per cent greater pixels per degree than Meta Quest 2.  The Quest Pro will offer a 25 per cent improvement in full-field visual sharpness in the centre view, a 50 per cent improvement in the peripheral region, and a 1.3X larger colour gamut than Meta Quest 2.

It is the first device powered by the new Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2+ platform, which is optimised for VR to run at 50 per cent more power than Meta Quest 2 with better thermal dissipation, resulting in significantly better performance.

Meta Quest Pro comes with 12GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, and ten high-res sensors (five inside the headset and five outside) that help enhance various immersive experiences.

Meta Quest Pro has an all-new sensor architecture with high-res outward-facing cameras that capture 4X the pixels for a full-colour mixed reality experience through stereoscopic mixed reality Passthrough. 

Thanks to its pancake lenses and the curved-cell battery Meta Quest Pro is the slimmest and most balanced VR device, claims the company. 

The latest mixed-reality device features what Meta calls a ‘continuous lens spacing adjustment mechanism,’ accommodating inter-pupillary distances (IPDs) between 55mm and 75mm.

It also comes with an eye relief dial, allowing users to adjust the distance of the lens from their eyes. With an open periphery design, Quest Pro lets users easily switch between real and virtual worlds. 

The Quest Pro comes with Quest Touch Pro controllers, with three built-in sensors to track position in 3D space. In addition, Meta says the new controllers are more ergonomic and have upgraded haptics featuring the TruTouch Haptics system. 

The controllers can be charged through the charging dock and 45W USB-C power adapter.

Partnerships

During the conference, Meta also announced a partnership with Microsoft to bring its productivity tools to Meta’s virtual reality devices. It includes Microsoft Windows 365, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Intune, and Azure Active Directory support, and the ability to join Teams meeting inside Meta Horizon Workrooms. 

Meta Horizon Workrooms is a dedicated VR space for teams to connect and collaborate.

In addition to Microsoft, Meta also announced a partnership with Accenture. This strategic move will help to expand the Meta Quest and Horizon Worlds ecosystems by integrating them with Accenture’s Independent Software Vendor Program.

Meta is also collaborating with Adobe to bring Adobe’s Substance 3D apps for professional 3D creators, designers, and artists in Meta Quest Pro and Meta Quest 2. 

Next year, the company plans to launch Meta Quest for Business, a subscription bundle for Meta Quest Pro and Meta Quest 2 that will include essential admin features like device and application management, premium support, and more.

Meta also announced a multi-year collaboration with NBCUniversal, bringing iconic comedy and horror experiences into the metaverse, including The Office, Blumhouse, DreamWorks, Universal Monsters, and Halloween Horror Nights.

Meta Horizon Worlds and Avatars

Meta announced that its virtual reality online application Horizon Worlds would soon be available to all users on PC and mobile devices. In addition, the company claims to work with the YouTube VR team where friends who hang out at Meta Horizon Home can watch YouTube videos together. 

The company also announced the Meta Avatar Store, where users can shop for virtual clothing from some of their favourite brands. Mark also announced that the avatars are also getting legs this time. 

“We spent a long time making sure Meta Quest 2 could accurately—and reliably—bring your legs into VR. Legs will roll out to Worlds first, so we can see how it goes. Then we’ll begin bringing legs into more experiences over time as our technology improves,” says Meta.

Malmö, Sweden-based deWiz, a startup that helps golfers enhance their game through technology, announced on Thursday that it has secured 43M SEK (approximately €3.9M) in an oversubscribed Series B round of funding. 

The company’s original investors group backed the round, which also included new investors like Patrick Rees, founder of Bygghemma, and global deWiz ambassadors Vijay Singh and Annika Sörenstam.

Fund utilisation

The Swedish company says it will use the funds to showcase its wearable swing modifying technology through marketing, global expansion, continued product development, and hiring talent.

deWiz AB also plans to enter new verticals, including sports like basketball and tennis, as well as broader applications across gaming and healthcare. 

“Matching our Series-A funding round last year, it’s a testament to deWiz’s potential with this fundraising effort countering the global economic and geopolitical headwinds and expanding the scope of our investors’ group. As we continue to grow, we’re establishing a U.S.-based investment entity and opening up new markets, both for our golf technology globally, as well as new technology solutions for other sports and industries for our patented approaches within wearable tech,” says Christian Bergh, co-founder and CEO of deWiz AB.

deWiz: What you need to know

Founded by Markus Westerberg and Christian Bergh, deWiz has developed a training assistant to help golfers deliver instantaneous feedback with the swing. 

Under development for more than five years, the company’s solution accelerates learning by alerting them in real time while they swing. 

According to the company, it tracks the exact position of a golfer’s hands throughout the swing, providing a 3D analysis and delivering data through the app that helps golfers consistently hit the ball longer, straighter, and closer, as well as learn faster with it’s patented Learning Stimuli.

The company also provides a coaching programme that teaches professionals by providing them with actionable, real-time data that they can apply to their practice.

The company’s Coaches Program benefits include affiliate revshare programmes, access to advanced data, and dedicated onboarding services for certified golf instructors.

Currently, the Coaches Program has partnerships with the LPGA Professionals, the PGA of Sweden, the PGA of Germany, and the Southern California PGA of America Section.

deWiz is available in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Australia, Japan, South Africa, and South Korea. 

“As deWiz continues to push the boundaries of technology and learning, this latest investment round will fuel the continued global growth of our golf swing modifier, which has gained tremendous traction the past year at all levels of the golf industry, spanning instructors, professional tour players and club golfers. This investment round bolsters our deWiz golf business for the future. Next, we will focus on raising additional investment for further development of new applications of our patented, stimuli-based technology,” says Jesper Kärrbrink, Chairman of the Board of deWiz AB.

“Part of the foundation of deWiz’s latest investment round has been the enthusiasm within the golf industry for deWiz Golf’s innovative swing data as we continue to introduce it to coaches and golfers, from the world’s elite to beginners trying to cure their slice. We’ve added a new layer of easily accessible swing data that helps golfers better understand precisely what they are doing in every swing, eliminating the guesswork and providing them tangible data points to hit the ball longer, straighter, and closer,” says Markus Westeberg, co-founder and Chief Product Officer of deWiz Golf AB.

LUMO Labs, an Eindhoven-based firm that creates opportunities for impact-driven software and smart hardware startups, announced on Thursday that it has invested €1M in Arnhem-based VR game tech company Enliven. LUMO Labs says the investment was made in collaboration with Oost NL.

Enliven says it will use the funds to accelerate platform development, brand visibility, and high-quality content production. 

“We are delighted to take the next step together with LUMO and Oost NL,” says Alex Tavassoli, CEO and founder. “This investment will allow us to expand on the societal topics we address and the global reach of our content. We will now be able to reach and empower more people and organisations, ultimately touching more lives and achieving more positive change.”

Enliven: What you need to know

Founded in 2015 by Alex Tavassoli, an Iranian refugee who arrived in the Netherlands, Enliven uses Virtual Reality (VR) for a social cause. The company claims that its virtual experiences increase empathic capacity, provide more understanding, and strengthen connections with others.

Driven by two main goals — awareness and behavioural change, the company’s technology allows users to experience immersive simulations from a target’s point of view. 

Enliven says the approach has proven to increase awareness of destructive behaviour’s emotional and mental impact and the likelihood of changing their behaviour.

“My biggest motivation is that every time someone experiences our content, they are exponentially more likely to act against domestic violence, bullying, or discrimination,” Tavassoli adds.

In addition to workplace situations, Enliven provides VR-enhanced simulations related to other real-life challenges such as divorce, domestic violence, and mental disability through the eyes of virtual personas.

All the VR simulations have been developed in close collaboration with and validated by prominent healthcare and security partners, including the Ministry of Justice and Security, the Police, the Public Prosecution Service, Probation Service Netherlands, and the Child Protection Board. 

About LUMO Labs

Founded in 2016 by Andy Lurling and Sven Bakkes, LUMO Labs creates opportunities for impact-driven software and smart hardware startups. 

The current LUMO Fund II is a €20M impact-driven multi-stage capital fund (pre-seed, up to and including Series A). It includes a two-year venture builder programme to support its portfolio companies in gaining financial success, social traction, and impact.

The company backs startups that align with at least one of the three UN Sustainable Development Goals – Sustainable Cities & Communities, Good Health & Well-Being, and Quality Education. 

The VC invests in multiple sectors, including Artificial Intelligence/Data, Blockchain, the Internet of Things, Robotics and Drones, and Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality.

Sven Bakkes, Founding Partner at LUMO Labs, calls Tavassoli “an incredibly persistent and committed founder. He has been able to make it very clear why he needed the additional capital and access to our network and program for speed and growth. We look forward to supporting him and his expanding team to make it all happen!”

Oost NL: What you need to know

Oost NL is the regional development agency of the Eastern Netherlands. The firm invests in entrepreneurs in the east of the Netherlands.

The agency strengthens the regional economy on behalf of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy and the provinces of Overijssel and Gelderland. Oost NL is active in top sectors like Food, Energy, Health, and Tech.

Jordy Schaufeli, Investment Manager at Oost NL, says, “A safe and healthy working environment, where people treat each other with respect, determines the quality of the service and ensures sustainable employment. We are very happy to contribute to supporting Enliven in its journey to further develop its product and vision. The product is innovative, has a significant social impact, is human-centred, and contributes to social challenges we are facing today.”