Haptic.al joins virtual reality startup accelerator in California
It all started in February 2016 — during my fellowship at the CUNY Tow-Knight Entrepreneurial Journalism program, supervised by Jeff Jarvis and Jeremy Caplan.
I launched a weekly newsletter to curate news, data and insight about the fast growing Virtual Reality market. My aim was to inform and inspire curiosity about this fascinating technology poised to revolutionize many industries.
I named the newsletter as Haptic.al.
Haptic is the name of the technology that recreates the sense of touch by applying motions to the user.
But why Haptic.al?
It is not about the technology itself, it’s about the people. It’s about the way we use technology to improve our lives in many ways.
Every newsletter or article published on Haptic.al is intended to “touch” curious people’s minds and hearts…
They are aimed to inspire new ideas and to connect VR users with others around the world.
I know… It sounds quite an ambitious effort but this is what I believed and what I always tried to accomplish during my tech journalism career.
This time, it was something very new… I just didn’t know how the audience would respond.
So I decided to do some marketing and PR…
I went to VR / AR demo days in New York. My aim was obviously to promote the Haptic.al newsletter, but more importantly I also wanted to meet my “users” to understand their needs and expectations.
A couple of weeks later a few hundred people from the academia, media and tech industry signed up for the Haptic.al newsletter.
It wasn’t thousands, but the reading rates were high, signaling a clear interest in what I was doing. So I kept working and meeting new people.
On April 2016, http://haptic.al was launched as a standalone publication on Medium.
I even got invited to speak at a VR Journalism event at Hofstra University.
With each article and newsletter published, Haptic.al’s community grew.
By July 2016, Haptic.al reached 1,000 subscribers.
With $0 marketing dollars spent.
And then another important thing happened...
We’re going to California!
The Green Screen Institute — a Californian collaborative initiative focused on innovations in virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), has accepted four promising start-ups to participate in the first class of its accelerator program.
Haptic.al is one of them.
The four VR start-ups
enerG, based in Los Angeles, is a fitness & media start-up innovating the way people workout. enerG is creating unique and immersive experiences through branded virtual fitness studios using cutting-edge content production, AR, and VR. The co-founders, Tracey Raftery and Saara Vakil, former TV and business strategy executives, created enerG out of a passion for health and wellness. (www.enerG.tv)
Hot Bit VR, based in New York and Los Angeles, is a virtual reality comedy destination from feature filmmakers Marcy Boyle and Rachel Holzman of Dpyx Productions. It will feature edgy comedians, explosive stunts, provocative art, and zany games designed for maximum immersion, interaction and shareability. (www.dpyxproductions.com)
Theia Interactive, based in San Francisco, makes immersive VR experiences in collaboration with the world’s leading companies and creatives, leveraging bleeding edge technology to pioneer the next generation of entertainment, storytelling and customer engagement (www.theia.io)
and Haptical… Based in New York and Istanbul, Haptic.al is a digital media publication founded by CUNY Tow-Knight fellow and technology journalist Deniz Ergurel. Haptical provides VR industry news, information and analysis, and connects motivated VR users from all around the world with businesses and communities. (http://haptic.al)
What we will do at the Green Screen Insitute VR accelerator program
During the 9 week program, all teams will work alongside an advisory board that includes industry and investment professionals from leading companies and active VR investors in the world.
As part of the Green Screen Institute program, Entrepreneur-in- Residence Rick Bess will prepare the teams for a venture capital demo day on September 9th in Nevada City. Among other executive and technology roles, Bess previously was Innovation Program Manager, Idea Mentor at Adobe Systems.
Haptical gets its first seed investment
In addition, the accelerator participants will each receive investment valued at $150,000 including:
. Cash investments
. Office space at the Green Screen Institute
. Networking opportunities with the advisory board, investors & others
. Access to VR & AR developer kits and production facilities, and access to a wide variety of specialized services
. Entrepreneurship education & programming
So what is next for Haptic.al?
First of all — from an entrepreneur’s perspective — being accepted to a start-up accelerator program with some seed capital is very encouraging to see the value of what you’ve been doing. Both emotionally and financially.
But at the same time it is also a great challenge.
Every dollar poured into a business means more responsibility, and every investor means more people to convince that what you are doing is worth taking the risk.
I am going to spend these two months improving Haptic.al as a publication that serves the VR community around the world in the best way possible.
Another plan is to build a brand new publishing experience on Virtual Reality headsets. An experience that is not possible to achieve in other, existing mediums.
If you have come so far in this post, it means you’re really interested in what I do. I owe you big time… Thanks! Let’s see where this rolls.
Oh… last but not least
Feel free to reach me if you are one of these:
- An advertiser / a sponsor who wants to reach a very focused and niche audience in media, tech and academia sectors.
- A content creator who wants to share her/his knowledge with a very engaged and curious VR community.
- A VR developer who is interested to build a virtual reality media experience and have a share in shaping the future of publishing.
- An investor who wants to help build a new generation media company around VR.
- Or anyone who is passionate about discovering unique opportunities and experiences in VR.
Let’s have a talk!
Find me on Twitter or Facebook.
