The Internet of Anything: An Accelerator That’ll Churn Out Startups for VR’s Bright Future

Josh Valcarcel/WIRED

Mike Rothenberg envisions a world where psychiatrists help people conquer their fear of heights using virtual reality, where students learn new skills in immersive virtual worlds, where paraplegics can roam digital streets without leaving their beds.

That world isn’t here yet, despite recent advances in VR technology, but Rothenberg thinks it’s close. To get there, however, we’re going to need more companies building new hardware and software. And that’s going to take capital. “The innovators have been stepping up for decades,” he says. “It’s time for the financiers to step-up.”

That includes Rothenberg himself. Last week, his venture capital firm Rothenberg Ventures announced a new startup incubator, dubbed River, that will provide $100,000 in seed funding to 10 different companies, plus provide office space in San Francisco and mentoring from tech industry veterans. The firm is now recruiting its first cohort, and it will be taking applications until January 11.

Of course, virtual reality was supposed to be just around the corner back in the early 1990s. But now the dream is back, and it looks like it may be more than just hype this time around. Many developers have already gotten their hands on Oculus rift headsets, and the general public will likely be able to buy them early next year. Meanwhile, Samsung has already shipped its Gear VR headset, and Sony is expected to follow suit next year with its Project Morpheus device.

What’s different this time around, Rothenberg says, is that the technology is better—we can finally explore virtual worlds without getting nauseous—but also that it’s cheaper. It’s now a matter of perfecting the hardware, and finding applications for virtual reality. “We believe that VR will touch every industry eventually,” he says. “Just like the internet is now ubiquitous, and touches everyone’s life.”

These new companies will need more than just money. Business incubators have long played a big role in helping new businesses get off the ground by providing work space, mentorship, and sometimes funding. But Rothenberg—who has already invested in virtual reality companies Altspace VR, which aims to make social media into a 3-D, immersive experience, and 3-D camera company Matterport —realized that there were no incubators focusing specifically on virtual reality companies. So he decided he’d have to start one himself.

With River, Rothenberg hopes to accelerate this process by building a community for early-stage virtual reality startups to collaborate and network, and providing a physical location to demo their technology to investors, mentors, and the press. “These aren’t things where you send a business plan over and it makes sense,” he says. “You’ve got to actually experience it.”