VR giants merge
January 12, 2017
By Chris Forrester
Three well-established – and award-winning – Virtual Reality content providers have merged.
Virtual Content Group (VCG), a conglomerate of international VR companies, formed recently from the merger of France’s Cow Prod, Germany’s INVR.SPACE and Australia’s 3D Content Hub, has announced its launch and winning of two Lumière awards from The VR Society. Utilising the forming companies’ over 15 years’ experience in developing leading-edge content, VCG will offer production, post-production and licensing services.
VCG has operations spanning thirteen countries and a rights library of nearly eighty VR titles, positioning it to rival the scale of leading American VR companies on the international stage. To date, the company has produced and co-produced more than 150 VR projects. The three respective entities have a long track record and clients in over 40 countries, including BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Disney, Huawei, Unicef, Sky, Netflix, NBC Universal, Samsung, LG Electronics, Sony and Deutsche Telekom.
The merger allows VCG to scale faster and serve larger clients with a regional focus on Europe and Asia-Pacific. “VCG is as an international leader in VR,” said Torsten Hoffmann, VCG co-founder and CEO, who has licensed 3D content since 2011. “Building our own IP is core to our business model.” The business, already profitable, will seek Round-A investment in early 2017 and intends to add more partners later this year.
Just three weeks ago, the Lumière™ award for Best European VR Campaign was awarded for VCG’s BMWi and Samsung 360° Experience. “The project included both 3D 360 live-action camera capture and augmented reality (AR),” said Berlin-based Sönke Kirchhof, VCG co-founder. VCG’s French team worked on Les Poissons Volants’ 3D 360 CGI project, Temptation of St.Anthony, which picked up the second Lumière award. This short film immerses the viewer into a famous medieval painting by H. Bosch.
In addition to distributing premium VR titles including Titans of Space and Tomorrow VR, VCG is currently developing a wide breadth of high-level projects, including museum installations, co-productions in Australia, South Africa, Hong Kong and Germany and a room-scale VR experience. “We partner with governments, companies and creatives all over the world and are not limited to one camera system or distribution platform,” added Gallien Chanalet-Quercy, VCG co-founder.