Immersive VR Education, the studio behind Apollo 11 VR, Titanic VR, and social VR education platform ENGAGE, today announced that it’s secured a €3 million (~$3.3 million) investment from HTC.

The investment follows a recent HTC Vive Ecosystem Conference held in Engage back in March, which would have otherwise been held in Shenzhen, China were it not for the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Immersive VR Education says in a press statement that the investment will be used to further develop and enhance Engage, build its sales and marketing capability, and fund the production of additional showcase experiences for Engage. The company’s platform allows educators to create bespoke VR experiences for both small and large format viewing, supporting up to 50 contemporaneous users on a variety of devices, including SteamVR headsets, Oculus Quest, Vive Focus Plus, and Pico headsets.

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“In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is set to catalyse long-term changes in working practices, VRE and HTC’s combined offering provides a complete end-to-end service to alleviate the challenges posed by reduced travel due to health and climate change concerns,” said Immersive VR Education CEO David Whelan. “We look forward to this next stage of our development and continuing to work alongside HTC as a strategic partner and shareholder to provide these solutions for customers.”

HTC recently unveiled its own social VR platform Vive Sync, which focuses on enterprise users and businesses looking for a virtual meeting place.

As part of this agreement, HTC will appoint one non-executive director to the VRE board, the studio says. It’s not clear to what extent the studios will collaborate however, as both companies now appear to have similar products with admittedly divergent target markets.

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Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • I’m happy for the great people at Immersive VR Education like Chris, Steven, David that do a great job everyday! It’s well deserved!

    Regarding HTC, I don’t think they offer competing products: Vive Sync is a tool for meetings, not for events. And Vive Events, that is used for events, is just a re-branding of Engage, so they are exploiting this partnership (or acquisition) exactly for offering this product. Now the question is if in the long run, Engage will still be Engage or will be completely acquired by HTC and sold only as Vive Events