Bigscreen raises $11 Million in Series A financing led by True Ventures

Why did we raise more funding?

As a small, fully remote team of developers around the world, we’ve spent very little of our $3 million seed financing. With several years of runway ahead of us, we didn’t need to raise additional funding.

However, over the past year, Bigscreen has grown significantly to more than a quarter million users. In just the past few months–led by several major product updates–our core metrics grew over 300%. Our power users spend 20–30+ hours using Bigscreen every week, and many users have spent more than 1,000 hours in Bigscreen.

Based on usage and user reviews, Bigscreen is now one of the most popular VR apps in the world. Bigscreen has become a killer app for VR (and we’re just getting started)

We now need to grow the team in order to improve the product and expand the Bigscreen platform to more VR/AR devices.

What we do

Our goal is to build immensely useful software for VR/AR headsets that–one day, in 5–10 years–people could use for 10 hours a day, every day.

In the past few decades of personal computing, we have crammed applications into tiny computer screens. For multi-tasking and organization, the most we can do is tabbed browsing. Immersive headsets enable us to break out of the screen and design computing applications the way humans think: spatially. With Bigscreen, you can have a browser in front of you, Netflix on the wall, and a Spotify music player floating to your side.

Secondly, VR enables us to immerse ourselves in virtual worlds that feels like a real, physical space. Our cinema environment features a 110-foot screen and realistic lighting that makes us feel like we’re watching movies in an actual movie theater.

VR is also powerful for collaborative and social applications. 2D videoconferencing limits natural communication, gesturing, and eye contact. Using Bigscreen with VR hand controllers, users can convey more body language than with just a webcam, and effortlessly communicate ideas.

Although VR may appear like a “silly, expensive toy for gamers” today, VR/AR is the next computing medium. In the next decade, VR/AR devices will be lightweight, affordable, stylish glasses. Eventually, all of our day-to-day computing activities–web browsing, word processing, movie watching, and gaming–will occur inside immersive VR/AR headsets.

To put it differently, Bigscreen is creating the virtual version of real-world movie theaters, living rooms, lounges, and workspaces.

Use Cases of Bigscreen

People use Bigscreen in 3 ways: public multiplayer (Internet friends), private multiplayer (friends), and singleplayer (60% use Bigscreen solo). The most popular use case of Bigscreen is to watch videos in a virtual reality cinema. This enables people to relax in the comfort of their own home, while feeling like they’re watching Netflix or Game of Thrones in a IMAX-like theater. Some ways people used Bigscreen surprised us:

• Couples in long-distance relationships use Bigscreen for “virtual date night” to relax and watch a movie together in our virtual reality cinema.
• College students are using Bigscreen to focus and study in a distraction-free and serene virtual environment, unlike their cramped dorm room.
• College students are virtually hanging out and playing video games with old high school friends living on the other side of the country.
• Gamers love using Bigscreen to play their favorite (non-VR) PC videogames on massive screens. Bigscreen also enables VR “LAN parties” for gamers to hangout with friends and play videogames together.

Remarkably, people are using the Bigscreen VR platform for mainstream use cases such as movie watching, gaming, collaboration, and productivity.