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XR startups and tech giants ignite disruptive wave of immersive innovation

Mohammed Fahad

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July 24, 2023

XR startups and tech giants ignite disruptive wave of immersive innovation

Influx of venture capital investments, coupled with notable advancements in XR devices and diverse industry applications offers abundant opportunities for startups to deliver significant value and make their mark.

The influx of venture capital investments, growing B2B adoption and the thriving ecosystem of innovative startups are driving the progress of extended reality (XR) technology and unlocking new dimensions of human engagement.

The XR landscape is experiencing a transformative innovation storm, with startups at the helm and tech giants entering the scene.

“The coming together of advanced technologies, the growth of connectivity and 5G networks, favourable regulatory conditions, increased collaborations with major tech companies, and the soaring desire for lifelike and interactive encounters have all contributed to startups’ visionary outlook. They now imagine a future empowered by XR, marking the beginning of an extraordinary age of digital immersion,” Shagun Sachdeva, Project Manager of Disruptive Tech at GlobalData, said.

Moreover, she said the influx of venture capital investments, coupled with notable advancements in XR devices and diverse industry applications ranging from education, entertainment to healthcare, and retail, reflect a strong optimism surrounding XR.

“This industry shift is just the tip of the iceberg, which is defining the next stage of a highly disruptive journey, offering abundant opportunities for startups to deliver significant value and make their mark.”

Key startups in different sectors

Retail and e-commerce: XR solutions in the retail and e-commerce industries enable immersive shopping experiences, virtual try-ons, and interactive product visualisation, revolutionising the way customers explore, engage with, and purchase products. Avataar, STRIVR, and Perfect Corp. are some of the XR startups addressing the needs of retail and e-commerce industries.

Travel and Tourism: XR solutions in the travel and tourism sector offer virtual travel experiences, immersive destination previews, and interactive virtual tours, transforming the way travelers explore, plan, and engage with destinations. Boulevard Arts, Lifeliqe, and TimeLooper are some of the XR startups that offer solutions for travel and tourism industry.

Media and Entertainment: XR in the media and entertainment industry deliver immersive and interactive experiences, enabling users to engage with virtual content, participate in augmented reality (AR) gaming, and explore virtual worlds, revolutionizing the way entertainment is consumed and enjoyed. Resolution Games, Sandbox VR, Virtuix, and Xreal are some of the XR startups catering the needs of media and entertainment industry.

Healthcare: XR in the healthcare industry allows virtual simulations for medical training, enhance surgical planning and visualisation, and offer immersive therapies and pain management techniques, revolutionising medical education, patient care, and treatment outcomes. AppliedVR, Augmentir, MediView XR, and FitXR are some of the XR startups offering solutions for healthcare industry.

“The pervasive nature of XR is not a question but rather how impactful and integrated it will become within various productive processes, products, and consumer experiences,” Sachdeva said.

As XR continues to evolve and mature, she said that it will be interesting to watch out for how startups continue to harness the power of XR to drive transformative change, disrupt traditional industries, and shape the future of immersive experiences.

Strong EV growth

According to Prescient & Startegic Intelligence, the Indian electric scooter and motorcycle market was valued at $893 million in 2022 and would touch $6.1 billion by 2030, growing at an annual compound growth rate of 27.30 per cent.

According to the Society of Manufacturers of Electric Vehicles, sales of electric two-wheelers surged to 8.47 lakh units in 2022-23, more than a two-and-a-half-fold increase from the previous year’s figure of 3.3 lakh units while low-speed e-bikes accounted for 1.2 lakh units last year, while high-speed versions made up the remaining 7.27 lakh vehicles.

“If you look at Hero, Bajaj, Ola and Ather, they are focused on various things. They are great marketing companies while Ather is very much focused on the brand and how premium they are. So, we are very much focused on how we position our distribution network and imbed the values of One Moto with the values of the Indian population,” he said.

Moreover, he said that they are never going to be cheap.

“When you go cheap, the quality of the components and the safety comes down. We will never go for cheap components to increase our sales.”

Sitting in a prime place

Looking back, Ridgway said that they had hard launched in January 2020 but after two months, the global pandemic gained a foothold. During that period, “we tried to focus on sales but customers were flip-flopped whether to lease the bike or buy the bike. We took a bold decision of not to focus on sales but to raise awareness about EVs and transfer knowledge such as CO2 emission and cost of ownership and in return, to know from customers about what they want to know.”

The startup’s main intention is how to build the smart mobility ecosystem in the last mile delivery sector where 90 per cent of the focus is.

In the last two years, they launched distribution networks in more than 10 countries such as Iraq, Ethiopia, Nepal, Chili, the UK, Italy, Jordan, Bahrain, Kenya, India, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Sri Lanka.

Ridgway said that another 26 countries are in the conversation.

“We are sitting in a prime place as none of the manufacturers have secured a presence in the last mile delivery. In July 2022, we launched an experience centre and an R&D centre at Dubai Silicon Oasis. We have launched three new vehicles which are hyper modular EVs which means that the parts are interchangeable and built on the same frame.”

Fleet financing options

In 2023, the startup had raised 123 million pounds in the UK to offer fleet financing to all delivery aggregators where customers can hire it for 3 pounds a day and another $40 million for the UAE market.

“Many customers have been requesting a finance option for our vehicles, to support their stability, growth and transition to sustainable mobility but access to institutional credit is tough for them, so we worked to secure the funding needed. Now it’s time for the fleet operators to tap into this resource,” Ridgway said.

The UAE government has been actively promoting electric vehicle adoption through various initiatives, including the commitment to more charging stations, and fostering partnerships with companies dedicated to sustainable mobility.

“We want to work with the governments and not rely on third parties to convert companies’ fleets to EVs.

Now, we are ready to lease our delivery vans and delivery bikes to clients for less than the monthly outgoings of petrol or diesel,” he said.

Massive expansion plans

Globally, the startup has sold several thousands of units but in the UAE, they have sold 582 units.

“With the UAE’s sights on 50,000 vehicles by 2025, a vision echoed by the government and following the stricter emission target with 40 per cent cut by 2023 announcement by Mariam Al Mheiri, UAE Minister of Climate Change and Environment, recently, we expect to sell or lease 10,000 vehicles in the next 12 months,” he said.

By 2028, Ridgway expects One Moto to be in 100 cities, sell one million vehicles and save a billion tonnes of CO2.

“We have a vision to IPO by 2028 and the next three years will allow us to realise our mission and even if we want to IPO at all”.

“My end goal is to provide mobility for all but I don’t know how to get there. We have already hit 15 of the 17 goals set by United Nations Sustainable Development goals and would like to hit 17 by the end of this year,” he said.

Moreover, he added that they have assembling plants in the UAE, Sicily in Italy, and discussions are on in Latin America, Mexico, Kenya and Ethiopia.

Business disruptor

“Microsoft’s software-first strategy continued to support its IaaS growth as customers required more cloud capacity to support automation, advanced analytics and digital workplace capabilities,” Nag said.

Alibaba Group again held the No. 3 position with 7.7 per cent market share, although with modest 2.4 per cent year over year growth.

While Alibaba continued to lead the IaaS market in China, Nag said that its limited potential for expansion across global markets has slowed growth, driving its recent decision to spin off its Alibaba Cloud business into a separate entity.

Huawei rounded out the top five IaaS vendors with 4.4 per cent market share and $5.2 billion in revenue for 2022.

“Since its 2020 pivot to an increased focus on cloud, Huawei has been steadily growing its IaaS revenue in China and emerging markets,” he said.

However, he said that the global IaaS market exceeded $100 billion for the first time to reach $120.3 billion, up from $92.8 billion in 2021.

“Cloud has been elevated from a technology disruptor to a business disruptor,” Nag said and added that IaaS is driving software-as-a-service (SaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) growth as buyers to continue to add more applications to the cloud and modernise existing ones.

More room for growth

“IaaS growth in 2022 was stronger than expected, despite a slight softening in the fourth quarter as customers focused on using their previously committed capacity to its fullest potential,” Nag said.

“This is expected to continue until mid-2023 and is a natural outcome of the market’s maturity. We expect an acceleration in 2024, as there is still room for plenty of additional future growth.”

“Generative AI will continue to drive the cloud market forward, particularly as hyperscalers look to support offerings beyond the existing, democratized generative AI solutions,” Nag said

As enterprises integrate generative AI into their technology portfolio, he said that new markets and opportunities for cloud hyperscalers will emerge related to sovereignty, ethics, privacy and sustainability.

What is Stacks?

With the help of a cutting-edge consensus method called Proof of Transaction, the Layer 1 blockchain Stack leverages the security of the Bitcoin blockchain (PoX). In essence, the Bitcoin blockchain serves as a settlement layer, while the Stacks blockchain serves as a computing layer.

The native currency of the Stacks blockchain is STX. Because it has both miners and stakers or at least a subset of both, the Stacks blockchain is unique.

You have two possibilities in the Stacks ecosystem to get an interest in your digital assets:

Mining: To take advantage of Bitcoin’s proof of work (PoW) security, Stacks’ miners integrate BTC into the ecosystem. By adding Bitcoin to the chain, you have the opportunity to participate in mining and receive the Stacks block reward. Stackers will accept this Bitcoin as payment for reaching consensus.

Stacking: Similar to most proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchains, stacking enables holders to provide security and earn interest. Unlike most PoS chains, STX rewards its stakers with Bitcoin.

A brief history of Stacks

In 2013, Muneeb Ali and Ryan Shea established Stacks at Princeton under “Blockstacks.” Blockstacks obtained seed money from Y Combinator in 2014; in 2016, it raised $4 million in Series A funding. Blockstacks raised $50 million through a private token sale a year later, in 2017.

2018 saw the debut of Stacks’ testnet and integration with the decentralized storage platform Gaia. The Stacks blockchain became operational later that year.

Is Stacks a good investment?

Stacks claims to make it possible for Bitcoin to use decentralised financing (DeFi). The network may experience exponential growth in the upcoming years if they are even somewhat successful in reaching its goal. Stacks might be the most profitable investment of the following ten years if Ethereum’s performance indicates the potential of blockchain smart contracts.

Replacing Ethereum’s steadfast community and relatively developed DeFi ecosystem will be challenging. Stacks is a high-risk investment; only use funds you can afford to lose.

How to buy Stacks?

Compare cryptocurrency exchanges: Purchasing Stacks via a cryptocurrency exchange is the simplest option. By learning how to buy Stacks crypto or comparing the cryptocurrency exchanges, you can select one with the qualities you want, such as affordable costs, convenience of use, or round-the-clock customer service.

Create an account: To sign up for an account on an exchange, you must verify your identity and email address. A phone and some photo identification should be ready.

Set up a deposit: You can deposit using the payment option that best suits you after your identity has been verified; bank transfers, credit cards, debit cards, and bank transfers (sepa) are all often accepted.

Buy Stacks: Stacks are now available in return for your money. It can be done on more user-friendly exchanges by simply entering the necessary purchase amount and pressing the buy button. You can now withdraw your Stacks to your wallet if you’d like.

Where to buy?

By comparing deposit options, supported fiat currencies, and trading costs, locate an exchange where you can buy, sell, and trade STX.

Here are some of the places or stacks apps to consider if you want to buy Stacks:

Okcoin

· Custodial

· Protocol APY

· 50 STX minimum

· No fees

Binance

· Custodial

· Protocol APY

· 1 STX minimum

· No fees

Coinlist

· Custodial

· Protocol APY minus fee

· 15% fee

Xverse Pool

· Non-custodial

· BTC

· 100 STX min

· No fee

Friedger’s Pool

· Non-custodial

· Pays in STX

· No fee

Planbetter

· Pays in BTC

· 200 STX minimum

· 5% fee

InfStones

· Non-custodial

· 100,000 STX minimum

· Enterprise & Whitelabel

Hiro Wallet for desktop

· Non-custodial

· Distribute direct protocol APY

· No fee

How to find the best places to buy?

While discovering where to buy Stacks crypto and understanding these exchanges provide similar services, there are some important differences, including fees, the variety of accessible cryptocurrencies, and payment options. You can compare the features of well-known cryptocurrency exchanges to get the one that’s best for you by being aware of their differences.

You may also want to consider factors like customer service, user feedback, usability, and whether or not the exchange is registered with a local authority.

What are the documents needed?

Any cryptocurrency exchange requires an email address to create an account. Since some exchanges might also need your phone number and photo ID, it’s a good idea to have them available.

Before you can deposit money and begin trading Stacks, many cryptocurrency exchanges will need you to provide proof of your identity.

A camera or smartphone, as well as a photo ID, are often required for the Know Your Customer (KYC) process. You might also be asked to include a copy of a recent utility bill or bank account to prove your address.
Some exchanges permit deposits and trading of cryptocurrencies without the need for KYC, but they forbid the withdrawal of local currency from bank accounts. So, you must finish KYC if you want to purchase STX with local money.
Once you have verified your identity, it is a good idea to employ 2-factor authentication (2FA) before banking any money. This will help to keep your money safe and increase the security of your account.

Payment methods?

After opening an account, you must deposit money to purchase STX. You can deposit local cash using a bank account or credit card, or you can transfer Bitcoin from one exchange or stacks wallet to another. For STX purchases, the following exchanges accept the following well-liked deposit options:

Bank Transfer: Although you should double-check with the exchange you choose, transfers from local bank accounts are typically free.

Credit or Debit Card: Linking a credit or debit card to your account is another useful option to top it off, but keep in mind that there will normally be an extra charge. However, there are advantages to utilizing a card to make one-time purchases or schedule recurring expenditures. Xverse pool, for example, allows people to buy Stacks using a credit card with Moonpay or Binance, or Transak.

Cryptocurrency: Typically, you can buy STX by exchanging it for another cryptocurrency, such as Bitcoin or a stablecoin. However, as this differs between exchanges, you’ll need to look up STX on the open market to find out what cryptocurrencies it can be exchanged for.

The easiest way to buy

While setting an “immediate buy” order to acquire STX at a set stack price is the simplest way to do so, not all cryptocurrency exchanges have this facility.

As an alternative, you can do a trade on the spot market, where you can choose the price. The most common way to purchase cryptocurrencies is using this approach. Although the immediate buy feature is typically more expensive than using the spot market, it is easy to use.

Should you invest in Stacks?

You alone can answer this. Do your research first, keep in mind that prices can go up as well as down, and never risk more money than you can afford to lose.

Xverse, the most advanced web3 Bitcoin wallet, allows users to purchase STX via Moonpay directly in your Xverse wallet home screen. So, if you are looking for a simple option to pool your Stacks, you can now do so through the Xverse wallet. This is available to download on Android and iOS.

Pauline Cruz is a passionate writer with a diverse skill set in technology and business.

Revibe secures 2.3m to rev up growth in refurbished-electronics market

Mohammed Fahad

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July 10, 2023

1

Revibe secures 2.3m to rev up growth in refurbished-electronics market

The startup has already grown fivefold in seven months despite focusing only in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
Flat6Labs, Resonance, Techmind and severalother business angels led the cash infusion.
Aims to provide customers like-new devices for 30-70 per cent cheaper than new devices and diversify into other electronics categories.

A Dubai-based refurbished-electronics B2C startup – Revibe – has secured a $2.3 million funding to accelerate its growth within the $6 billion refurbished consumer electronics market in the MENA region and expected to reach $20 billion within the next decade.

The startup, founded in 2022 by Abdessamad Benzakour and Hamza Iraqui, has already grown fivefold in seven months despite focusing only in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

The funding round was led by Paris-based Resonance, Flat6Labs, Techmind, financiere Saint James (family office of Michael Benabou) and several business angels.

The founders identified the need to create trust in the regional second-hand electronics market and with the promise to provide customers like-new devices for 30-70 per cent cheaper than new.

Moreover, they based their value proposition on sustainability, price sensitivity, and increased trust.

More funding in second half

“We saw that there is an abundant supply of eco-friendly electronics, both locally and through imports. But in spite of the booming demand for more affordable green tech products, there was no established, trusted party capable of providing quality-controlled devices at scale,” Benzakour said.

Revibe will use the cash infusion to rapidly expand in its core markets and strengthen its operations and customer care team, based on its founders’ belief that successful scaling will only come from the company’s ability to provide quality in both products and service from the beginning.

It will also develop its technology team, and make investments in marketing. Throughout 2023, Iraqui and Benzakour are additionally focusing on strengthening Revibe’s supply base while diversifying into other electronics categories such as smartwatches. A subsequent funding round is expected to happen in the second half of 2023.

Reducing carbon impact

“Our promise is to provide customers with like-new devices. Currently, we are concentrating on Apple iPhones and iPads, some Samsung devices, and laptops. Our success has come from always meeting our pledge to customers. But we are expanding all the time and our goal is to gradually introduce all categories of electronics,” Iraqui said.

Maxime Le Dantec, Partner & Co-founder, Resonance, said that the refurbished electronics represents a massive opportunity, especially in this time of economic challenges and growing climate awareness, where consumers are more mindful of their carbon impact while facing decreased purchasing power.

Key startups in different sectors

Related posts:

Strong EV growth

Sitting in a prime place

Fleet financing options

Massive expansion plans

Related posts:

Business disruptor

More room for growth

Related posts:

What is Stacks?

A brief history of Stacks

Is Stacks a good investment?

How to buy Stacks?

Where to buy?

Okcoin

Binance

Coinlist

Xverse Pool

Friedger’s Pool

Planbetter

InfStones

Hiro Wallet for desktop

How to find the best places to buy?

What are the documents needed?

Payment methods?

The easiest way to buy

Should you invest in Stacks?

More funding in second half

Reducing carbon impact

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