Janus VR, Startup That Aimed to Build the Metaverse, Closes

Another metaverse shoe was dropped yesterday, this time by James McCrae, the CEO and co-founder of Janus VR, a Toronto-based startup which raised over $1.5 million according to Crunchbase. McCrae's stated reason for the closing is regulatory: 

I write to inform the broader community of our intent to dissolve the corporation, Janus VR, Inc., at the end of Q4 2019. It is no longer feasible to maintain our corporation status in Canada and the US given the expenses this will incur each year (as it relates to legal, accounting, patent/IP filings, etc.)

It's likely the startup could have stayed afloat with additional funding, but apparently that funding never came. Sad to say, this is one of several startups attempting to build the metaverse, as detailed in a 2016 profile:

"Inspired in part by Snow Crash’s Metaverse, James McCrae and Karan Singh sought to build a network of VR portals within which users can collaborate, communicate, explore, and even create new 3D content."

This follows High Fidelity and also Sansar scaling back their own metaverse-minded efforts considerably, despite having much more funding. 

When companies close up shop, they often reveal some interesting insider details. And according to McCae's announcement, Janus VR attracted some decent user numbers:

A fact some may find surprising is that Janus VR has had hundreds of thousands of unique users since it was created. It is an incredible feeling to have built something that captured such attention and delighted so many people, or at least introduced them to our unique interpretation of the "immersive web" - even if that vision was a little "early", "different" or "ahead of its time".

Hundreds of thousands is not bad at all -- and a decent pool of people quite possibly looking for similar kinds of VR experiences.

Word of this announcement via virtual world explorer Nodoka Hanamura, who briefly explored the platform: "Janus VR was an interesting attempt at being a VR-oriented web browser. Sadly in this day and age such things are quite niche."

Certainly the case now, but that may change at least somewhat soon. Here's some hoping Janus VR's technology and creators find future opportunities to keep innovating.

Comments

[Pulsar]

Probably aimed at the wrong niche. Directly loading inside your web-browser that real life bedroom, with the Ready Player One poster on the walls, or the garage with a working Windows 3.11 computer were insanely cool... Yet that may attract mostly geeks.
However, what you could do with such technology, instead?
Well, virtual tours for hotels and apartments are a thing already since years and there is a good market for that (Google "airbnb 360 tour" for examples).
So, rather than your usual 360° pictures, a service similar to Janus could offer a true 3D tour to be embedded into your website, which would be a serious improvement. Just count how many hotels and apartments there are all over the world and you get an idea of how large this potential market is.

[Adeon Writer]

Sadly these things get shut down before I even know they exist.