Sequoia India invests $7 mn in 3D and AR platform Avataar.me

Soul Vision Creations, which operates a 3D and augmented reality (AR) platform Avataar.me, has raised $7 million from Sequoia Capital India as part of its Series A round.

Avataar has previously secured over $1.6 million across three rounds from angel investors and Wisconsin, US based architecture and planning company, New Horizon, according to data sourced from VCCEdge. 

The company provides brands with life-size and hyper-realistic 3DXR/AR experiences to drive customer engagement for digital and digitally influenced commerce. It has 10 US patents for its plug and play platform and works with over 20 brands in the sectors of e-commerce companies, consumer electronics, auto OEMs and FMCG majors across India and Southeast Asia. 

The Bengaluru headquartered claims its business has grown three-times over the last seven months due to the Covid-19 pandemic. It has also signed a global AR partnership with Instagram and Facebook to collaborate on AR/VR integrations. 

For the year 2021, the company is targeting expansion to the UK, Germany and Japan. It also plans to use the fresh capital to fund research and development for its product.

Avataar was founded in 2014 by former investment bankers at Deutsche Bank Sravanth Aluru and Gaurav Baid and former partner at Kalaari Capital, Prashanth Aluru who has moved on to the role of director for strategy and operations at Facebook. Former director and country head at KKR Capstone, Mayank Tiwari joined as co-founder and chief business officer in 2019. 

“To put the opportunity into perspective - by the end of 2019, there were about 1.65 billion handsets with built-in AR capabilities in consumer’s hands. This is creating an opportunity for AR/VR that didn’t exist 12 to 18 months ago,” Sravanth Aluru, CEO of Avataar in the statement.