Visionary VR Raises $6M to Make Accessible VR Story Creation Software

LOS ANGELES, CA--(Marketwired - Mar 23, 2016) - Visionary VR, a Los Angeles-based startup, today announced it has secured a $6M Series A funding round led by DFJ to continue building accessible VR story creation software. Visionary VR joins DFJ's portfolio of forward-thinking companies, which includes Box, Skype, and Tesla.

"Given Visionary VR's insights into how storytelling is going to be redefined by virtual reality in the future, this company is aligned with DFJ's long history of investing in disruptive technologies," said Bubba Murarka, partner at DFJ. "Even after seeing hundreds of VR demos and creating our own VR app at DFJ, experiencing Visionary VR's product left our team slack-jawed. It is that impressive."

The Venture Reality Fund, BDMI, GC VR Gaming Tracker Fund (Greycroft Partners), Vayner/RSE, and End Cue also participated in the oversubscribed round. Prominent individual investors include Walter Kortschak, Douglas Purdy, Lee Rierson, Carl Rosendale, Ethan Beard, Jeff Marx, and Anamitra Banerj. Previous funding included Boost VC.

The Visionary VR team is well-known within the VR and entertainment industries through their involvement with VRLA, the world's largest expo for virtual and augmented reality. VRLA co-founders Jonnie Ross, Adam Levin, and Cosmo Scharf joined forces with VFX veteran Gil Baron and game designer Luke Patterson to found the company in 2014.

Visionary VR continues to use virtual reality to push beyond the language of conventional storytelling. They are one of the first companies to demonstrate the viability of creating VR content from within VR. They will use the funds to grow their team of VR designers and engineers and develop the commercial version of their software.

"Today, only expert-level developers can create VR stories," said Gil Baron, CEO of Visionary VR. "We're going to change that."

DFJ partner Bubba Murarka will join Visionary VR's board of directors. Previously, Bubba led product development for Facebook for Android and started the Facebook Home project. Prior to working at Facebook, he spent seven years in technical and product roles at Microsoft, where he acted as group program manager for Bing's Bay Area development team. The investment is DFJ's first foray into virtual reality.

For more information about Visionary VR, please visit: http://www.visionaryvr.com.