Why did this VR start-up company favored by Google Ventures choose to close down?

Envelop Founder and CEO Bob Berry

Envelop VR, a VR start-up in Washington State, announced the suspension of operations. The news was published on the company’s official website.

The company focused on VR commercial applications is favored by several well-known venture capital and angel investors, including Alphabet's Google Ventures and Madrona Venture Group. The company received a total of $7.5 million in financing.

Before the announcement was closed, there was a bleak omens about the company's operations, which had cut the total number of employees to about 20 people four months ago. Envelop tried to gain a foothold in the emerging VR market and the results were not satisfactory.

Envelop introduced a product in 2014 that allows users to work in a virtual environment. This is a virtual Windows desktop. Users can put on helmets to open many windows in VR space and set unlimited 2D screens.

At the 45th Economic Forecast Conference in Seattle, Bob Berry, founder and CEO of Envelop, was interviewed by GeekWire about why he chose to close the company.

One reason for choosing to close: The timing of the VR market is not right

The first reason he mentioned was the immature market timing. “We have been in this industry for three years, and we still don't see how big the VR market is, and there is no space we can use,” Berry said. “We realized that the time for the realization of our strategy will only appear two to three years later. For companies that we invest in, you must be in the right place and at the right time. And I think we are too early. ”

Berry stated that they are very aggressive in entering the VR market and eventually lost in the “wrong place and wrong time”. The company originally intended to continue the next financing for production and acquisition of content, but later decided to stop. "That would be a very capital-intensive business. I think it is difficult to see such a financing based on the current market conditions," Berry said.

Berry also said that they can actually spend a sum of money on themselves for a few more years until the market develops, but he thinks this is "not very attractive."

Reason for choosing to close the door: The platform is wrong

Berry said he has not left the VR industry, and his other game company Uber Entertainment is doing VR-related things. He is still optimistic about VR, but he feels that Envelop not only had the wrong timing, but also chose the wrong platform.

“I think our positioning of Envelop may eventually lead to a dead end because I think the future of desktop-class Windows VR may not be so beautiful,” he said. “For us who want to enter the future of mobile hybrid reality (MR), this is a dead end. We need to turn to the mobile instead of being stuck on the PC.”

Berry believes that the environment of the PC platform proved to be the right place for the birth of the early VR concept, but the company has spent too much time on this platform. "We should have already turned to move," he said. "I think that if we want to change our turn a year ago, we will now be in a completely different position. However, people, eat a long shot."

Mature VR market for many years

Berry said he is currently actively looking for a buyer for the company's technology and will leave for a while to think about what his next step is. But Berry still believes in VR.

However, there are also skeptics, Erik Benson, an early supporter of Envelop VR, said at an event in Seattle last month that “There is no VC opportunity in the AR/VR area in the near future.”

"Today, I don't see a unicorn in the VR field," Benson said. He further explained that in the current consumer-grade VR market, there are basically no other reasons why users buy VR products besides playing games. He believes that this situation will not change until at least 10 years.

Berry, who is more confident with VR, believes that there are still room for development for some VR start-ups who are 2B products. Before he thought VR was going mainstream, he needed to have a very comfortable headset and a complete content distribution system. This system is capable of producing high-quality VR video, allowing “I feel like watching a musical in VR just as if I were actually watching it live.”

"That would be a real revolution, but we have many years away from this future," Berry said.

At the event, Berry stated that we can't look at VR from our age. "That's our children and grandchildren," he said. "Their interaction with people, data and computers will be very different from ours."

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