A San Francisco venture firm is recruiting startups to build what its partners hope becomes the framework for the brave new world of virtual reality.

Venture capitalist Mike Rothenberg imagines a future in which visiting Grandma is as easy as putting on a headset. In a decade or two, he predicts, companies will worry not only about their social media presence, but also their virtual reality presence.

“We’re still in the early days of adoption for (virtual reality) — the technology itself has been developed for decades, but what’s different now is the quality of the actual experience for the consumer: It’s affordable and it’s actually a wonderful experience,” he said.

Next month, 10 startups will move into Rothenberg Ventures’ South of Market office as the first class in its River accelerator. The companies will each receive $100,000 in investment and mentoring during their three-month stay.

“There’s hundreds if not thousands of people who have been building the various parts of the ecosystem already, (but) funding hasn’t really been there for really passionate people to quit their day jobs to build companies up until now,” Rothenberg said.

Rothenberg, 30, says River is the first accelerator for virtual reality companies. Having invested in virtual reality startups, he was surprised to find there were no accelerators devoted to the sector.

“The investor in us was kind of disappointed in that, and the entrepreneur in us said 'OK then, we’ll build that,’” he said.

19th century device

The underpinnings of virtual reality have been around for more than a century, thanks to the stereoscope, a 19th century device that combines two images taken from slightly different angles into a three-dimensional illusion. That basic idea now powers virtual reality headsets — devices like the much-anticipated but not-yet-released Oculus Rift, Google’s Cardboard and Samsung’s Gear VR.

Long the stuff of science fiction — like in Aldous Huxley’s 1932 dystopian novel “Brave New World” — virtual reality is moving into the mainstream, thanks in large part to Facebook’s $2 billion acquisition of Oculus VR last year.

Rothenberg says now is the time to put money into infrastructure, platforms, applications and content for the technology.

At his home office last month, Rothenberg fired up a demo product on a developer version of Oculus Rift, hooked up to his laptop. The graphics weren’t quite lifelike, but Rothenberg says they’ll get there. It’s dizzying enough that Rothenberg suggests people sit down for their first virtual reality demonstration.

In a movie-like demo, the wearer steps into a boat and floats along an approximation of the River of Hades, surrounded by fire. It’s immersive, as a turn of the head reveals a scene that wraps around the viewer. In a video game fashioned to look like “The Matrix,” the headset wearer dodges bullets and jumps across rooftops, using a controller.

Virtual reality has already caught the imagination of gamers, but Rothenberg sees broader applications, including military training and education.

“You could film in 3-D all the best instructors in whatever their field is, throughout history, and let them always teach the class, no matter where you are,” he said.

Despite a big showing at this week’s Consumer Electronics Show, a rather large question is whether the technology will really catch on in the consumer market.

Of course, not every technology is a hit with consumers, even when there is major interest from venture capital firms.

Glass lessons

Less than two years ago, it looked as though Google Glass would be the next big thing in electronics.

Sand Hill Road venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz jointly founded Glass Collective, an investor coalition devoted to making gizmos for Glass, with Google Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

But since then, Google Glass has seems to have lost its allure with developers, especially for consumer use. Glass Collective’s website now redirects to a Google Glass page. Andreessen Horowitz declined to comment on the endeavor.

Mark Bolas, who has been working to bring virtual reality into the mainstream for 25 years, hopes to see the medium’s price continue to drop.

“Television came out, and then the big thing was a television in every home,” said Bolas, an early adviser to Palmer Luckey, the founder of Oculus VR and the director of the Institute for Creative Technologies’ Mixed Reality Lab at the University of Southern California. “I think virtual reality is going to go beyond that — I think every person is going to have a device,” he said. “You’ll have early adopters in 2015, and then I think it’s just going to grow exponentially from there.”