Jaunt secured its $27.8 million Series B round in the summer of 2014 led by Highland Capital Ventures, at the time bringing its total funding to $34 million.
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Jaunt leads the industry in innovation through its unrivaled end-to-end solution for creating and distributing premium live-action VR.
JauntThe company has also built its own video cameras for capturing live-action virtual reality experiences in 360 degrees, and its fifth generation Jaunt One camera is being targeted at professional content creators.
It includes experiences like Aladdin’s Magic Carpet Ride, where visitors put on a virtual reality headset and sat on something like a stationary bicyle.
Other new investors in Jaunt Inc., of Palo Alto, California, include German media conglomerates Axel Springer SE and ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG; China Media Capital, a Chinese government investment firm focused on entertainment; and Evolution Media Partners, a venture fund backed by private-equity firm TPG and Creative Artists Agency LLC, Hollywood’s largest talent agency.
Kevin Mayer, Disney’s senior executive vice president and chief strategy officer, added that as a “true leader in the field of cinematic virtual virtual reality, (Jaunt offers access to) an emerging medium with incredible potential across all sectors of entertainment”. Although today’s announcement will boost the hopes of film enthusiasts and tech gurus alike, Mr. Christensen said VR still has a long way to go before the release of a VR motion picture.
Disney recently used Jaunt’s VR services for ABC News’ virtual look at Syria as part of their coverage of the migrant crisis.
The technology faces its mainstream moment over the next year as several virtual-reality headsets are released to the public, from Sony Corporation, HTC, and Facebook’s Oculus unit, among others.
The startup’s ultimate goal is what makes Disney’s investment on Monday significant: Jaunt wants to make virtual reality the next way we watch movies and television. “The business of media and content will be totally different in a few years, and companies like Jaunt will drive that change”.
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“I find virtual reality to be the most compelling new visual medium to come onto the entertainment landscape in my lifetime”, Evolution Media co-managing partner Rick Hess told The Journal. “It’s truly objective. There’s no filter between you and what’s going on”. For example, Twentieth Century Fox produced a short VR film based on the Reese Witherspoon movie Wild. However, it’s mostly been in the “education phase”, rather than full-scale production, given that consumer virtual-reality hardware has yet to flood the market.
