As we approach summer holidays and a break to recharge, it’s a natural time for many to pause, reflect and consider future investment trends.

The last 12 months have been tough economically, with both founders and investors adapting to a challenging landscape. Standing still is not an option; those who survive and thrive are those most adaptable in reacting to change.

Artificial intelligence is a sector that continues to soar. Rapidly gaining momentum in the last 12 months, it’s widely recognised as transformational across many aspects of our lives.

Hovering on the horizon as one of the explosive trends to watch is XR Design. Using extended reality technologies, including virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality, XR Design is an incredibly exciting, evolving and expanding sector.

Creating immersive experiences to engage consumers is expected to be a vital component of many businesses of the future. The potential of the Metaverse is huge and will significantly impact on how we shop, grow brands, and how we spend and enjoy our leisure time.

Having witnessed the meteoric rise of ChatGPT and AI programmes during the first half of 2023, will it be XR that dominates in the months ahead?

The innovative and early adopters will be the ones to watch in this exciting space…

Investment Spotlight – Arlene

A Growing Tech Platform in the Future of Digital, XR and The Metaverse

• Sector: Web 3.0 Technology VR/XR
• Deal Stage: Early Growth
• Channel: B2B
• Raise: $1.5m
• Location: US/New York based
• Traction: Post-revenue, with 1,250 projects created and over 200 organisations signed up, including Universal Music Group, Coach and JC Decaux, all achieved with almost no marketing or sales spend to date.

Arlene connects the digital and physical worlds through its platform webXR.tools, offering turnkey solutions for brands, businesses and creators to build 3D, AR and VR/XR experiences.

Founders Colin Jacobsen (ex-Twitter, MoPub, AOL) and Hermes Frangoudis (ex-Agora, Blippar) have created the quickest and easiest tools to connect physical and digital worlds, to enable users to build professional, immersive AR/VR experiences without the need for coding.

Fully web-based, with no app or VR sets required, it has collaborative teams functions and is commercially enabled for ads and eCommerce.

Arlene’s webXR.tools will both democratise and disrupt XR in the same way as Shopify did eCommerce and websites.

The global XR market is estimated to be worth $451.5 billion by 2030 and by 2025 nearly all smartphone users will be frequent AR users.

Arlene is very well placed to quickly gain traction and a share of this market, and with 3 key investors recently committed the investment round is already attracting a lot of attention.

For more information and to arrange a call directly with the founders, please contact greg@pa-capitalpartners.com