With a consistent rise in virtual reality technologies, entrepreneurs have used VR to infiltrate traditional industries, simultaneously building up an entirely new one. One such company to capitalize on this growing technology is NYU startup, Myx Reality, whose founders created a solution for what they believe to be a glaring problem in the young industry.
As former VR designers and producers from the Interactive Telecommunications Program(ITP) at NYU Tisch, co-founders Joakim Quach and Ondina Frate found that there was no easy way to collectively storyboard VR stories, sequences, or scenes. Myx’s digital platform allows virtual designers to map out each VR scene, offering a single space for graphic designers, developers, and writers to communicate, streamlining the entire VR production process.
“We started Myx with just an idea based on a problem we personally experienced - no easy tool to storyboard for VR,” explains Frate and Quach.
In the beginning of the semester, the duo reflects that Myx was “just an idea.” After being selected into the second cohort of NYC Media Lab’s Combine program, and winning a grant award of $25,000, the team was able to leap from merely ideation to a working venture. In growing, they began to better understand their customers’ wants, for their biggest challenge was “creating a product that is of benefit to their users."
Supported by the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment, NYCEDC and NYC Media Lab member companies, the Combine matches faculty and students with industry mentors to advance new technologies and business concepts.
Myx was also selected into the Verizon Connected Futures Prototyping and Talent Development program, earlier this Spring, securing an investment of $20,000. Verizon, in partnership with NYC Media Lab, awarded $200,000 to 11 University teams to accelerate the creation of new prototypes within three topic areas: augmented and mixed reality, conversational interfaces, and the Internet of Things.
To top of the tremendous start to the year, this summer, Myx will be entering the NYU Summer Launchpad accelerator run by NYU Entrepreneurial Institute, gaining access to more resources for their enterprise. With $10,000 grant funding, one-on-one coaching sessions, startup boot camps, and talks from established speakers in technology and entrepreneurial ecosystems, the ten teams in the accelerator will garner the skills they need to launch and grow their ventures. Heading into the summer, the co-founders are looking forward to the mentor relationships, and hopes to get a “deeper understanding and analysis of [the] business as well as getting more information about customers.”
“Our biggest goal,” they explain, “is setting down a strong business foundation and also work through a pilot, so that we can release a beta version of our product by the end of SLP.”
Stay tuned for updates on Myx Reality!
Author: Aya is a rising senior in the College of Arts and Sciences, studying Journalism and Anthropology. Despite her untraditionally business course of study, she has a penchant for startups and all things entrepreneurial. She loves reporting on the ways young ventures have solved some of the world's biggest problems, and investigating the crevices where future entrepreneurial opportunity lies.
