NOLO’s official Press Release via Yivian

Dedicating in building the future of “personal VR device”, NOLO VR, a technology company focused on mobile VR interaction, announced recently that they have completed Series A funding of US$10 million. This round of investment was led by Blue Run Venture Capital, followed by Lotus Capital. Previously, NOLO VR had secured Lotus Capital, Galileo Capital’s Pre-A round and Angels round of investment.

The World’s First-Ever Mobile VR Interaction Device – NOLO CV1

NOLO VR was established in 2015. The core team of NOLO VR was led by doctors and masters from well-known universities, such as Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing University of Posts & Telecommunications and Communication University of China, as well as industry experts from IBM, Samsung, Huawei, LeTV, Perfect World, and Baofeng Technology.

The NOLO team has independently conceived and patented their core technology PolarTraq™, a spatial positional tracking system which fuses optic, acoustic and radio signals. This is the only positional tracking solution on the market today that can satisfy “single base station, one to many, low cost, low power consumption, high precision, high frequency, high robustness and large tracking range”.

Based on PolarTraq™, NOLO dev team developed and already launched the world’s first 6-DoF mobile VR interaction device – NOLO CV1. It’s a VR hardware product for mass consumers. With exclusive portability and ease of use, as well as a price of about 15% of whole PC VR set, NOLO CV1 enables everyone to enjoy the fully immersive VR experience, which was only available with HTC Vive/Oculus Rift/Sony PSVR and other PC VR before, through Android/iOS mobile phone anytime anywhere.

Wei Cao, the executive director of Blue Run Venture Capital, said that the mobile VR based on smartphones has a huge global market. In the mobile VR ecosystem, the interactive interface is a key pain point that limits the immersive VR experience for users. The NOLO VR team solved the pain point in mobile VR interaction through original underlying technology and spatial positioning algorithms, and enabled users to use VR devices as easily as Bluetooth earphones. Because of its high portability and affordability, NOLO CV1 makes it possible to widely use and popularize “personal VR devices”, which will help accelerate the commercialization of VR in the consumer market. In addition, the NOLO team also has global strategic planning and execution capabilities in terms of technology, products, supply chain management, market operations and sales channels.

Daoning Zhang, founder & CEO of NOLO VR, said that NOLO CV1 finished mass production and start shipping in June 2017 as scheduled. Within months, the products have been sold to more than 10,000 users from 66 countries and regions around the world. The core users have covered North America, Europe, Japan, South Korea and China. NOLO firmly believes in the future of “personal VR devices”. The team will continue to optimize the software, hardware, and content platforms to form a complete set of mobile VR ecological closed loop and product experience. Through a new generation of human-computer interaction interface, NOLO will truly make everyone in the world easily enjoy the fully immersive experience of personal VR devices anytime, anywhere.

It is reported that after this round of financing, NOLO VR will soon release the world’s first 6-DoF mobile VR application platform – NOLO HOME, and jointly establish a 6-DoF mobile VR content ecosystem with VR developers globally.

Empower 100 Million of Mobile VR Headsets Worldwide. Bring New Growth Point to The Whole Industry

According to rough statistics, the market of mobile VR headset has exceeded 100 million units, including smartphone-based headsets represented by Google Cardboard, Samsung Gear VR, Baofeng Mojing, and Xiaomi VR, as well as standalone headsets like Oculus Go which released by Facebook and Xiaomi. Today, mobile VR products already have a considerable user base at the consumer market.

However in the meantime, due to the vital lack of interactive devices, the current mobile VR hardware form is like a PC with only a monitor for a computer case. We can only “see” but not “move”. As a result, mobile VR can only be For viewing, it is even defined by many people as “a video player” or “amateur’s toy.” However, as described in the “Ready Player One” movie, the interaction with the virtual world is the key to the immersive VR experience. The entire mobile VR industry has been waiting for an interactive device suitable for mobile VR.

While NOLO CV1 exactly complements this hardware form for what’s missing in mobile VR.

NOLO CV1 empowers more than 100 million mobile VR worldwide, allowing the head and hands tracking in the virtual world and experience SteamVR titles easily by connecting to the PCs. Meanwhile, it also empowers millions of PC VR headsets. They are no longer just 360-degree video viewers but also has the ability to experience fully-immersive SteamVR contents. Even a million of SONY PSVR can be empowered, with SteamVR game features previously available only on HTC VIVE and Oculus Rift. Last but not least, NOLO CV1 can also empower PC and mobile AR glasses to realize interaction between virtual world and reality.

Therefore, dozens of global VR/AR hardware vendors, such as Deepoon, PiMax, Pico, Meta, Nibiru, Carl Zeiss, and AntVR, have developed different levels of collaboration with NOLO VR to create VR Kits with interactive features, by improving product experience to achieve the purpose of product sales. In addition, hundreds of VR developers from around the world took part in NOLO content development and ported their existing 6-DoF VR games from the popular platforms to the NOLO HOME platform through NOLO SDK. NOLO CV1’s empowerment to VR headsets will possibly bring new growth points to the VR hardware and content industry.

“As smartphones are revolutionizing PCs, mobile VR is definitely the future trend.” NOLO VR Founder & CEO Daoning Zhang firmly believes that “NOLO not only makes the mobile VR hardware form complete but also more portable and cost-effective. The key point is that mobile VR form represented by NOLO is more ‘efficient’ than PC VR. After this round of financing, NOLO VR will focus on global VR developers, such as SteamVR and PSVR developers, to build a complete mobile VR content ecosystem. At the same time, we will focuses on the R&d of NOLO software and hardware products and optimizes the global production and sales system, and helps the VR consumer market to grow faster and further.”