Sony is reportedly investing heavily in XR CLOUD platform developer MonoAI Technology, which has received 750 million yen (about 41.35 million yuan) from Sony's Sony Innovation Fund, and with Sony's investment, the total amount raised by monoAI will reach 1.525 billion yen. It is reported that the new funds will be mainly used to support "expanding the meta-universe market and strengthening its virtual space platform XR CLOUD."
"MonoAI has been concerned with the possibilities of virtual space since its early days and has developed the virtual space platform XR CLOUD using its own technology," the company said. The potential of the metacosmection has received widespread attention in recent years, with Bloomberg estimating that the metacosm will expand to $783.3 billion by 2024. monoAI has raised a new round of funding for further R&D and business strengthening in order to lead the market by strengthening XR CLOUD. ”
Moto Tsuchikawa, Principal Investment Manager of Sony Innovation Fund, said: "MonoAI is a startup that continues to grow steadily by delivering value in the metacosm and XR space. We hope to consider business cooperation with Sony Group and support the company in addressing new challenges." ”
In addition to Sony, other investors have been involved in the investment in monoAI, including SEGA, Koei Tecmo Games, Cygames and NTT Communications Corporation.
As a result, the company has received strong support from many sources. The VR market is just gaining momentum, and Sony's investment is now meaningful. In addition, the virtual reality world is the future of technology, so it would be very beneficial to join this trend as early as possible. In short, this looks like a major move by Sony ahead of the release of the PSVR 2.
It is understood that MonoAI was established in January 2013 and is headquartered in Kobe City, Hyogo Prefecture, Japan, mainly providing virtual event solutions from entertainment to virtual office and game technology. The company currently employs 116 people and is divided into three segments – Games, XR and AIQA.
XR CLOUD is an enterprise-to-virtual space launched by MonoAI, which can accommodate 100,000 people at the same time, the team can customize special virtual events for enterprise needs in a shortest week, without XR and IT-related technical knowledge, any enterprise can easily hold various activities in a high-quality virtual space with the support of monoAI, including inaugural seminars, new merchandise presentations and in-house meetings.
In addition to this, monoAI already has considerable experience in gaming, having outsourced mobile and console projects in Japan to 3DS. The studio also has some mobile device games in the pipeline.