AR23D can’t be called start-up any longer. It is a profitable company with serious ambitions to spread its influence on the markets of several continents. It is a significant fact considering that the headquarters of the company is located in Odessa – on the territory of CIS. Today AR23D attracts large foreign investments, work on augmented reality projects for the most popular mobile platforms and has a particular interest in Smart glasses industry, looming on the horizon. ARNext asked Vitaly Goncharuk, the CEO of AR23D, to tell about the current spheres of interest and plans of the company.
What are your business interests? Which products do you propose?
We earn mainly by issuing licenses on our solutions to advertising and marketing companies. Recently we have signed up a very interesting contract on games licensing with one of the largest manufacturer of souvenirs in Great Britain.
Our current products are games My Dragon Toy, AR Basketball, Bugs Mayhem and systems for advertising based on augmented reality (for example, browser GlorAR) for iOS, Android and Windows Phone platforms.
Why mobile platforms have become a priority for you?
This has happened due to the huge market capacity, plus there is no need to deal with hardware.
Today there are large software companies on the augmented reality market, for example, Total Immersion and metaio, which produce their own software platforms. However, the young age of an industry suggests that new players with their own SDK such as AR23D can get to the top. What is the position of 3D Augmented Reality SDK on the market?
AR23D relies not on technology, but on the products and services that are clear to our customers. Therefore, we consider metaio, Qualcomm and similar companies not our competitors, but rather potential suppliers of interesting technologies.
At the moment we are focused mainly on creating our portfolio of games and B2B-solutions for advertising and marketing.
The most promising event of 2013 in AR sphere is expected to be the release of chip sets for cell phones with chips capable of processing augmented reality from metaio – AREngine. What prospects are being opened to business (advertising in particular) with the emergence of the capacity in smartphones and tablets allocated for the construction of augmented reality?
The main problem of making augmented reality profitable is not a lack of technology, but a lack of high quality services and products that could meet real needs of consumers and increase the ROI (return of investment) in the business. Although, I believe, the quality of solutions should be significantly improved with this new product from metaio.
What is your assessment of the future of augmented reality glasses? Are you engaged in development in this area?
Yes, we are very actively engaged in this. Recently we have become a development partner of Vuzix.
We believe that the announced augmented reality glasses from Google and Vuzix M100 during the first 1-2 years will be effective mostly in narrow niches (mainly for B2B-solutions). They will receive mass distribution only with the development of services for them and improved user performance – no earlier than 2014.
Can AR-technology move advertising to a higher level?
Sure, they can, especially from the moment when the AR-browser will become a default app in mobile devices.
According to your press release on the successful attraction of investment from the venture fund AVentures, AR23D with headquarters in Odessa focuses on income from the markets in the USA, Europe and the Persian Gulf States. Do you have any plans for development in the CIS countries – in particular, in Russia?
We do have plans. I get requests from Russia to participate in the AR-projects at least once a week. We are currently looking for a partner in Moscow which would take over the tasks of distribution of our products and technologies, active work with BTL, marketing and advertising agencies.
Could you share your plans for the nearest future?
We are actively investing in the development of AR games and B2B solutions as well as building up the network of partners on markets that interes us the most – USA, Western Europe, China and Russia.
We also have a few very interesting B2B-solutions for AR-glasses and we are looking forward to their mass production!
Links and references:
Augmented Pixels – http://augmentedpixels.com/
Vitaliy Goncharuk – http://ua.linkedin.com/in/vactivity/
Original interview (Russian language) on ARNext can be found here