How This 3D-Printed Prototype Raised More Than $12M in Funding
A Redwood City-based startup called Avegant aims to change the way mobile video is consumed by creating devices that can give consumers a mobile viewing experience. In an interview with Avegant co-founder Allan Evans, I learn about the origins of Avegant and what the future holds for the hardware startup.
With top secret stuff in Avegant’s lab, I was directed into the main conference room, where Allan Evans, the co-founder and CTO of Avegant, told me the story of the exact moment of inspiration that led to the formation of Avegant:
“Three years ago, I was working on a bunch of projects at a government lab. The DOE drove us through combat zones at night. They would leave all their lights off.. they would use something like an iPad that had thermal night vision to see. [The light would reveal our location, however.]
I made a joke, why don’t you use a head-mounted display? About two hours later, they were suffering from eye fatigue [after using thermal night vision to see in the dark]. The screen was glowing while they were driving [and this make their eyes strain]. They said, yeah we would love to use a head-mounted display.
My background is in medical devices. We looked at vision from a medical perspective.
However, when we looked at where this technology could be applied, we realized people have their phones. Everyone has glasses and phones and cameras.. and everyone loves movies. There are a lot of relaxing features about it. You don’t have to wear contact lenses, you can take them out and put the device on and it works. The direction of Avegant was not always as commercial as it is today. The emerging market matured when Facebook acquired Oculus Rift, causing other head-mounted displays to enter the market. The future demand for head-mounted displays was no question, since we already carry around mobile devices and tablets with us to consume content. The only thing to work out was its form factor. Through out development, Evans wanted to make an open platform that can easily fit into existing devices such as an iPhone or Xbox without any extra effort in formatting the video export.”
My idea of cinema was forever changed at that moment, when I pictured myself laying in bed, taking my contacts off and putting on a head-mounted display — binging on science fiction films with my own personal movie theater.
When asked about that lazy viewing position, Evans responded: “Well, that’s the first way we think people will use it! My co-founder is excited to use the device to watch movies, when his wife is asleep… he talks about how he would be able to just put the device on without disturbing her.”
Since the company was founded in September 2012, it has grown through its concept stage when it raised $1M in funding through Kickstarter to where it is today, a VC-backed company housed in a former bank, right across the street from the Oracle yacht in Redwood City. Evans said Avegant had to change the direction of the company based on the evolving consumer market. With so much left to do to bring this product to market, I asked Evans where he gets his continued inspiration from.
Evans laughed and then said: “My mother never learned to program our VCR. Every time we think about product features, I think to myself, would my mother be able to figure out how to use it if I put her in a room alone and gave her three minutes.”
On the table in front of us are several of Avegant’s prototypes. Looking at the latest version of the prototype, it appears that the product is looking more like a headphone set with a tiny display. I could only see the physical aspect of the prototype (as in, what it looked like). The view is similar to the view you’d have if you were at a movie theater, where there’s black on your peripheral vision with a screen right in the center. (I can’t wait to see how the software works with a 360 movie in it).
“One plug into your cell phone and you can bing watch the last season of Breaking Bad,” Evans said. He occasionally steers the conversation way from Avegant to his vision of the future of content consumption, which I also think about frequently. He’s betting on 360-video consumption and high-dynamic-range imaging as two technologies that will revolutionize video experiences.
“This is a 3D-printed prototype that we designed. We put it together out of nothing when we started the company. We were trying to prove that the technology that we had could be worn. We used it to raise an angel round of funding. With that money, we built the unit we had for CES last year,” Evans said.
How does he improve each prototype, I wondered.
Think about what people wear, Evans said. He threw the question back at me:
“What is the perfect near-eye display to you?”
Something people already wear.
Each prototype is modeled after what consumers already use, so that people don’t feel uncomfortable wearing it in public (like some other new wearable devices that have been visually challenging). The viewing experience is designed for mobile consumption and to achieve the movie theater look, it is done by manipulating the wave properties of light so that it is similar to how light travels through windows — which of course, for design sake, is easy on the eyes.
Suggested story (Fourth story, part 2): Founding Stories: The Moment of Inspiration and Sources of Inspiration
Full disclosure: This is the fourth story of a five article series about startups and venture capital. This series received support from Intel, who sponsored and invited me to attend the Intel Capital Global Summit last week. The first story published is called How to Pitch a VC. The second story is Scaling Your Company to $30M. The third story is called How to Hire Millennials in the Digital Age.
