Chymera VR Inc, a virtual reality advertising platform, has secured funding from a clutch of angel investors, including People Group founder and chief executive Anupam Mittal, Airbnb's global expansion head Varsha Rao, Google executive Surojit Chatterjee, and HHC Holdings chairman Nirav Choksi, among others. The investment was made through the LetsVenture platform, said a company statement.
The startup will deploy the funds to ramp up product development in Bangalore and to increase its publisher and advertiser base primarily in the US, the statement added.
Founded in 2015 by IIT Bombay alumni Sushil Kumar and Smeet Bhatt, the San Francisco- and Bangalore-based startup offers technology solutions to advertisers who want to use VR as a way of storytelling and brand building.
“Our current focus is to onboard quality publishers and improve on ad experience. Chymera has already partnered with 12 publishers in the US, UK and France,” Bhatt said in the press note.
Other VR startups which have garnered investors’ interest in the recent past include Imaginate Technologies, which raised Rs 3.35 crore ($500,000) in seed investment from venture fund SRI Capital in February this year.
VR game studio Xanadu Heights Inc. secured seed investment from Dheeraj Jain, managing partner at London-based investment firm Redcliffe Capital, in November 2016. Foyr.com, a Hyderabad-based online interior designing and home décor startup that uses AR and VR, has raised funding from a new real estate technology investment vertical set up by property consultancy firm Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) India.
In March, Surat-based ShilpMIS Technologies Pvt. Ltd raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Puneet Gupta, a digital industry veteran and angel investor, Nimitt Desai, partner at Deloitte US, and other high net worth individuals (HNIs). ShilpMIS calls itself the Instagram/PowerPoint of virtual reality (VR).