Jan 30, 2018

VirZOOM the videogame peripheral company behind the VirZOOM bike controller for virtual reality (VR) head-mounted displays (HMDs) has announced the closure of a seed funding round, securing the fitness firm $5.5 million of investment. The round featured both existing and new investors including Skywood Capital, with personal investments from partners at Eastham Capital, Fairhaven Capital, and Equity Resource Investments. Co-Founder and CEO Eric Janszen is the largest single investor. The Tracker fund is focused on VR, augmented reality (AR), esports, and game start-ups. The round is intended to fund the company to expand its commercial business worldwide with 2nd generation products VZ Module and VZ Sensor that make any stationary bike VZ-Ready for VirZOOM VR Fitness content. VirZOOM was co-founded by veteran game architect Eric Malafeew and finance and technology industry executive Eric Janszen in February 2015. It began shipping its VZ Arcade VR fitness game suite commercially in June 2016,   supporting HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and PlayStation VR. Then in 2017 VirZOOM announced plans about getting into the worldwide commercial gym market in partnership with Life Fitness , a commercial fitness equipment company. “VirZOOM is skipping past the early adopters to bring VR to mass market customers through cardio exercise motivation. The company is making actual sales, shipping products commercially for a year and a half and forming commercial partnerships with major fitness equipment companies like Life Fitness, who can help VirZOOM scale,” said Jon Goldman, investor and founder of the GC VR Gaming Tracker Fund in a statement. “We welcome our new investors and are pleased to see many previous investors participate as well, some for a fourth addition to their previous investments,” said Co-Founder and CEO Eric Janszen. “Their continued confidence in our project is greatly appreciated by the team.” VR fitness is becoming much more of a hot topic nowadays and as more companies invest and enter the filed, VRFocus will let you know. Share Staff writer at VRFocus who enjoys bringing the latest news to our keen readers all over the world. Obsessive gamer since the days of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, when Peter does step outside he's off to practice Bruce Lee's Jeet Kun Do, or see the latest local live bands. E-mail: pgraham@vrfocus.com