Today at the China International Digital Entertainment Expo & Conference (ChinaJoy 2016), HTC announced the first batch of companies to take part in their recently announced Vive X Accelerator program. The cohort of 33 VR startups, coming from across the industry, will see investments from the fund and go through a four month course to get their products into a market-ready state.

The first batch of startups were chosen from a pool of approximately 1,200 applications globally, 50% of which came from China, and range anywhere from content creators, to companies focusing on enabling technologies, hardware and services, says HTC.

Participating startups will develop their tech across four Vive X locations—San Francisco, Beijing, Taipei, and a hardware-focused location in Shenzhen—and will have four months “to produce marketable products/content which will be presented to potential investors upon their graduation.”

The first companies accepted into the Vive X program (minus startups still in stealth) include:

Entertainment

  • Action Bunker VR
  • 7D Vision
  • LumiereVR

Gaming

  • Directive Games
  • Shortfuse
  • EdSenses
  • Omnigames
  • Metal Cat
  • Glowsticks Games

Applications

  • CleVR
  • appMagics
  • Teemew
  • SurrealVR

UI/UX

  • BreqLabs

Tools/Technologies

  • RockVR
  • Apmetrix
  • Fishbowl VR
  • Kaleidoscope VR
  • Immersv
  • Wondergate
  • ObEN

Education/Medical

  • Augmented Intelligence
  • TheMetaverseChannel

HTC hasn’t specified exactly how much of the $100 million earmarked especially for the accelerator the companies will be receiving.

vrvca-virtual-reality-venture-capital-alliance
See Also: HTC-led Venture Capital Consortium Represents $10 Billion Earmarked for VR

If you are looking to get some of that $100 million for your big idea however, HTC is taking applications starting in November 2016 for their second batch of startups, with intentions to expand to more locations in Asia Pacific and Europe in 2017.

VRVA Grows

The HTC-led Virtual Reality Venture Capital Alliance (VRVCA), a consortium of venture capital firms focusing their funds on virtual reality, has also admitted eight new members, bringing the total investible capital beyond $12 billion.

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“As the leader in the VR industry, HTC is committed to supporting a vibrant VR ecosystem. The Vive X Accelerators and the VRVCA are integral parts of our vision for enabling and rewarding true innovation amongst the VR startup community,” said Alvin W. Graylin, China Regional President of HTC VR.

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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.
  • Get Schwifty!

    Man I just love reading stuff like this…. the VR train is moving down the tracks every day! Whether you are a Oculus user or Vive, this is great to hear!

    • James Friedman

      Indeed!

  • DiGiCT Ltd

    The investments seems not to be specific to developers directly but seems more that you need to develop in their location and in their office under supervision as it is specific location bound, the money however is possibly part of the office rental cost and test room space supplied by HTC, at least it looks a lot like that.
    Why else you only can get investment in specific locations?

    I was considering myself to apply but since i am in China i would even not reconsider doing it in that way, as ideas easy be stolen here, as well as art and code.
    Too many details missing from HTC side.
    Although for startups it can be great as they will supply you with the office, consultant and required equipment.
    But this also means that those things are actually what they invest instead of letting a developer or company making it independent.

    I might be wrong on some of it, but as far as i analyzed it seems more like this kind of investment approach.

    Looking forward to see what comes out of this investment they did.
    For me personally , I only prefer Funding, but without it still working hard to make our VR game go to steam, just slower but not impossible.

    If anyone could enlighten more on this subject I am intrested to hear it, as i might apply for the next round if it is really funding development instead of the way i mention above.

    • Alvin Graylin

      Just having funding isn’t special…having the unfair advantage of support from the market leader is far more important…not to mention the financial support of Vive X and VRVCA… ;)

  • Chris7

    HTC just got an equity share in all those businesses…

  • Chris7

    Would of been nice if they did this a year or two ago.
    But they were busy focusing soley on hardware trying to beat oculus to market