Pires Investments (AIM: PIRI) noted a new investment made by Sure Valley Ventures ("SVV") in the reality capture and volumetric video company, Volograms Limited (“Volograms”).
The investment firm confirmed its initial £1.1m investment into entrepreneur-led VC fund Sure Valley Ventures in late November 2019 in return for a 13% interest in SVV.
SVV has successfully led a new €1.5m investment round for Volograms, in which Atlantic Bridge University Fund and Enterprise Ireland have also made follow-on investments.
Pires highlighted that the funds raised by the investment round will accelerate Volograms' ambition to integrate AR capture technology into personal mobile devices.
A market leader in volumetric video, Volograms has worked with customers including Samsung, The London College of Fashion and The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.
Volograms' technology enables users to capture volumetric holograms of real people. By inserting holograms into videos, people can create their own immersive Augmented Reality ("AR") and Virtual Reality ("VR") content for use in apps, social media and VR headsets.
Shares in Pires Investments have rebounded strongly over the past three months from intraday lows of 1.55p to close on Tuesday at 3.1p.
The mobile AR market is forecast to grow from 1 bilion compatible devices and over US$8bn in revenue in 2019 to 2.5 billion compatible devices and $60bn in revenue by 2024.
Pires said growth potential for Volograms is therefore ‘significant’ and could attract success similar to other innovative products designed for mobile applications such as Pokémon Go.
“With the mobile AR market forecast for considerable growth in the coming years, we believe that Volograms is opening a new market category for AR photos and video,” said Peter Redmond, Chairman of Pires.
He added, “Already a market leader in volumetric videos and with a well-recognised customer base, we also believe that Volograms' technology will usher in the rapid expansion of the mobile AR industry and so this SVV investment in Volograms is exciting and well-timed.”
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