virtuix omni mark cuban shark tank investment funding venture
Virtuix Omni at GDC 2014

After initially shunning the product during an appearance on ABC’s investment reality show, Shark Tank, billionaire investor Mark Cuban joins other venture capitalists in raising $3 million in seed funding for the Virtuix Omni VR treadmill.

A few months back, the Virtuix Omni was featured on ABC’s investment reality show, Shark Tank (Season 5, Episode 11). CEO Jan Goetgeluk pitched the omnidirectional VR treadmill to a panel of wealthy investors, including Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban. Goetgeluk approached the investors seeking $2 million for a 10% stake in the company but didn’t land a deal.

Cuban, who reasoned on the show that the product was too reliant on the Oculus Rift, seems to have changed his mind. Today, Virtuix has announced that the company has raised $3 million from a number of investment firms, including Cuban’s Radical Investments. I’ve got a good feeling that the $2 billion Facebook/Oculus buyout had something to do with the reversal.

See Also: Q&A: Virtuix CEO Shares Inside Details of the Shark Tank Experience After Omni Pitch

The Virtuix Omni is an omnidirectional treadmill for VR gaming. Virtuix didn’t invent the idea of the VR treadmill, but they designed a passive solution that represents the first affordable commercial version of such a device.

The $3 million seed round, which will help the company expand production and distribution of the Omni, includes investments from Partech (Tekton Ventures), Maveron, Scetan Ventures, Scout Ventures, StartCaps Ventures, a group of private investors, and Cuban’s Radical Investments. Virtuix says that Tekton and Maveron made bulk of the investment. The terms of the deal were not announced.

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The Virtuix Omni started its journey on Kickstarter where it blasted through the $150,000 goal to raise $1.1 million. The Omni can be pre-ordered from Virtuix for $499. The first Kickstater units are expected to be delivered in July with pre-order units coming later in the summer. The company says it has sold more than 3,000 units thus far.

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Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • Christoher

    Probably because the Oculus that is reliant on is a shore thing

  • Alkapwn

    That’s awesome news For Jan and the Virtuix team! I’m so pumped to receive mine! The only thing I’m a bit concerned with both The Omni and STEM is that I jumped in on the ground floor. These products and interfaces are sure to be enhanced upon in the near future, probably cheaper too. But alas that is the way being on the bleeding edge is. If it didn’t hurt, they wouldn’t have called it the bleeding edge.

    • eyeandeye

      That’s how I felt both times I ignored Oculus VR’s recommendation to wait for the consumer model. I knew CK1 was going to be miles better than the DKs, but this is history in the making and I wanted a front row seat.

      I originally pledged for an Omni as well, but at the last minute backed out because I started to have doubts about how much I’d use it, and how much support it would get from the games I was interested in playing. Later on I got to see it in Dallas at Quakecon 2013, and had they allowed us to try it out there, it may have swayed me to re-pre-order. I’ve decided I can wait for a Gen 2 model, widespread adoption by developers, and to try it out first before I buy it.