2018 was a phenomenal year at InstaVR! We expanded our publishing outlets, added new features, raised a new round of funding, expanded our team, and continued our leadership as the largest platform for B2B VR app creation. Below are some of the highlights. Thank you for supporting InstaVR over the last 12 months!
January 2018 –
Published Customer Success stories featuring Hello Kitty & Toyota High System
In January, we published our Hello Kitty Customer Success Story. It remains one of our most widely read and distributed case studies. Their use of InstaVR has shown the transformative power of Virtual Reality as a B2B tool — in the travel/tourism space, for use at conferences + events, and as a cross-platform publishing success (iOS/Android/WebVR/Gear VR).
Read the InstaVR – Hello Kitty Customer Success Story
We also that month published our Customer Success Story featuring Toyota High System. A great read on how to use InstaVR to improve your employee recruiting efforts!
Read the InstaVR – Toyota High System Customer Success Story
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February 2018 –
Great interviews with clients & industry experts
In February, we were able to interview some of our favorite clients and VR experts to help share knowledge. These included a furniture designer client (Zuo Modern), the VR lead at Nestle (Charles Jordan), and the author of “The 360-degree Video Handbook” (Michael Wohl). If you’re an InstaVR Pro user or industry expert, we’d like to be include you our interview series. If you have any questions, kindly sign up free of charge and contact our sales team. (Click here for free membership registration.)
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March 2018 –
The UK government starts using InstaVR
Our first major UK government use case was launched in March 2018, with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport using InstaVR as part of their “Culture is Digital” campaign. You can view the WebVR feature from them here. We’ve since had a UK government division use us for training safety officers, and look forward to expanded relationships with government agencies throughout Europe.
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April 2018 –
New feature roll outs, including time-based hotspot appearance
As a web-based platform, we’re constantly pushing out updates to our InstaVR Pro service. April saw a number of new features launched, including time-based Hotspot and Navigation Link appearance. To read about what those are, and how to use them, check out our article from April.
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May 2018 –
Oculus Go starts shipping, with InstaVR publishing to it from launch!
May 1st saw the launch of the standalone mobile VR headset from Facebook, the Oculus Go. It also marked the first day InstaVR Pro users could publish to the headset. Now regarded as the premiere headset for B2B Enterprise use, we’ve seen great adoption among our client base. Stay tuned in a few more months, as the Oculus Quest launches, with InstaVR likely providing day 1 publishing capabilities.
To read more on the Oculus Go, read our overview page on the headset.
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June 2018 –
$5 Million in Series B funding!
In June, we closed on our Series B round of funding – $5 Million USD. Besides bringing on some influential new investors, and have our existing investors reinforce their belief in us, the funding round has allowed us to expand our team and improve our technology. We’re committed to utilize the investment to keep improving our platform to allow B2B professionals the opportunity to maximize the benefits of Virtual Reality. Read our release on the funding round here.
July 2018 –
More important InstaVR features released, including Stream or Download for long-form apps
Another round of new features were released in Q2, including the very popular “Stream or Download” option that allows for long-form apps to be create and distributed in smaller initial app size. There have been some great apps built using this specific feature, including this month’s “Choose Your Future VR” app from Galago Vision & the LAPD. Read our release on this and other new features here.
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August 2018 –
Welcome new intern to InstaVR, who helps showcase WebVR enhancements
August saw the addition of a new InstaVR team member — intern Josiah McCoy of Fremont High School in Oakland. He was introduced to us through PilotCity, a great program out of San Leandro that pairs up Bay Area tech companies and local schools. One of Josiah’s projects was to help build a WebVR tour using some of the new InstaVR web features launched that month, including customized web logo, tab, and page name. Read about those WebVR enhancements here.
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September 2018 –
InstaVR exhibits at HR Tech in Las Vegas & Dreamforce in San Francisco
September saw us exhibiting at two of the most important tech conferences in the world – HR Tech & Salesforce’s Dreamforce. We continue to believe that the Enterprise segment will see the biggest growth in VR adoption in the coming years. And for that reason, we invested in meeting the best & brightest HR and sales/marketing/customer success professionals. Read our recap of Dreamforce here.
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October 2018 –
InstaVR’s Chili Restaurants Customer Success Story again shows the value of VR at conferences and expos
October saw us publishing on of our favorite Customer Success stories — Chili’s Grill & Bar. It again showed how powerful InstaVR can be in making memorable, awe inspiring applications for use at conventions and expos. We’re looking forward in 2019 to hopefully more great use cases for our platform from the Chili’s team! Read that Customer Success story here.
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November 2018 –
Casting InstaVR Oculus Go apps to a phone becomes a reality
We’re always on the lookout for new features and functionality that will improve the user experience of our subscribers. So we were happy to announce compatibility last month with the Oculus Go -> Android phone streaming feature. This is particularly effective for using VR for Training, or at sales presentations, or in the educational space. If you have any features/functionality you think would benefit InstaVR Pro users, let our Customer Success team know. In the meantime, read how to mirror your Go to a paired phone.
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December 2018 –
“Choose Your Future VR” from Galago Vision & the LAPD launches cross-platform: Oculus Go, Android, iOS, and Web
December has seen one of our previous Interview subjects, client Galago Vision, launch their LAPD “Choose Your Future VR” app across Oculus Go, iOS, Android, and the Web. If you haven’t downloaded or streamed the app, we highly suggest it. The team at Galago Vision really made great use of the Insta360 + InstaVR, as well as advanced editing techniques. Find the links to download the app here.
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That’s just about a wrap on 2018. Thanks to all who have used InstaVR this year, helping us to double our user count to 40,000+. And check in next week for our thoughts on the world of VR in 2019!
