Japan-based mobile social media company Gree has launched a $12m corporate venturing fund called GVR Fund that will invest in virtual and augmented reality startups.
GVR will provide funding to early-stage companies working on gaming or non-gaming software and content that utilise virtual reality (VR), augmented reality or mixed reality technologies.
The fund will be managed by Gree, but its limited partners also include Colopl VR Fund, the $50m VR-focused venture capital fund launched by game publisher Colopl in December 2015, and social networking company Mixi.
GVR’s first two portfolio companies are VRChat, the US-based developer of a social VR world-building platform that secured an undisclosed amount of seed funding from venture capital firm Rothenberg Ventures in February this year, and Spaces, for which Gree has not disclosed any information.
Naoki Aoyagi, managing partner at Gree’s corporate venturing unit Gree Ventures, said: “The GVR Fund highlights Gree’s commitment to the potential of virtual reality as an emerging platform.
“We not only see ourselves as a content developer but as an investor as well. We want to create the same values we successfully did in the past through investments in companies when the mobile platform took off.”