People are excited about the world of gaming, especially people in Los Angeles. It was only a few weeks ago that the esports infrastructure company, Nerd Street Gamers, announced that it’s building the largest, public esports arena – right in Hawthorne. Now that LA is leading the world in gaming, physical infrastructure, it also needs companies like Croquet, which is focused on industry-leading Live Collaboration technologies. This technology allows developers to build multiplayer gamers in an efficient and scalable manner because if one developer performs an action on their device than this change will instantly appear on the other developers’ end. Croquet seeks to enable every app and game to work collaboratively, and the enterprise collaboration market is already a multi-billion dollar industry and expected to be worth $60B by 2023.
La TechWatch sat down with Croquet CEO David Smith to discuss the world of live enterprise gaming, the company’s future plans, and recent funding round.
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
Croquet raised a seed round of $2.7M, including $2M from SIP Global Partners with the remainder from angel investors, friends and family of the founders.
Tell us about the product or service Croquet offers.
Croquet is a synchronization system for multi-user digital experiences such as augmented and virtual reality, as well as other forms of digital content like video, animation, and multi-player games. Croquet allows users to work or play together within a single shared distributed environment, and it guarantees that this distributed environment remains bit-identical for every user. This synchronization is largely invisible to the developers who are Croquet’s customers. Creating a Croquet app doesn’t require the developer to write separate client and server code, or deploy a server. Applications are developed as though they are local, single-user experiences, and the Croquet library takes care of the rest. Croquet’s revolutionary software is powered by a global edge reflector network, optimized for co-deployment with 5G modems that will foster a new generation of shared, interactive, and collaborative experiences. Croquet’s unique benefits include ultra-low latency, easy and fast programming, massive scalability, cheaper deployment, encrypted security, and user anonymity.
What inspired the start of Croquet?
I’ve built products and companies for over 30 years, with a focus on real-time 3D for games and enterprise, including Wearality, Virtus Corporation, Red Storm Entertainment, and Gensym. I’m a former Chief Innovation Officer and Senior Fellow at Lockheed Martin. Croquet’s world-class team of developers originally came together as part of Y Combinator Research’s Human Advanced Research Community (HARC) with Alan Kay, widely considered to be the father of the personal computer and a key Croquet advisor. Working together for many years, the Croquet team has perfected the technology to realize their long-held dream of collaboration across space and time.
How is Croquet different?
Croquet’s industry-leading Live Collaboration technologies bring fast and efficient multiplayer experiences to the next generation of apps and games on any device, optimized for the AR and 5G future. If I perform an action on my device, you instantly see it on your device, and a third person instantly sees it on their device, and so on, up to many thousands of devices. We all instantly see each other’s actions. This even includes complex simulations that are computed identically on everyone’s machines.
Croquet’s mission is to enable every app and game to work collaboratively today. No other platform can deliver on that promise.
What market are you targeting and how big is it?
Croquet is targeting developers of collaborative games and apps for all markets; and the enterprise collaboration market. The majority of new games and apps will be live collaborative within 5 years.
Collaborative AR enterprise apps and games will be the primary growth drivers for 5G –
Enterprise collaboration market is expected to grow from USD $34.57B in 2018 to USD $60B by 2023.
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What’s your business model?
Croquet is a subscription service. Developers pay us based on their customers’ usage. We measure usage to the minute and the number of messages used.
What was the funding process like?
Croquet is a foundational new technology. Today, this is a bit more difficult to obtain funding for because most investors are looking to extend existing frameworks into new markets. The advantage of a foundational technology is that if it is successful it is significantly more valuable than traditional tech businesses. We found some great angel investors that believed in the future we were building, and this enabled us to finish the first version of our platform. We were then positioned to close the major seed investment from SIP Global Partners, a new fund with a shared vision. We still meet with interested investors, both individuals, and funds, as we prepare for Series A.
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
We have an incredible team, and I was most concerned about losing them as we were building the system and raising money. Our team is an exceptional group of engineer/researchers that have built a truly remarkable system. It was essential that we maintained a focus on this goal even when the capital was very tight.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
Here’s what Shigeki Saitoh (GP of SIP Global Partners) said:
“We are excited to support David and his remarkable team as they enable innovation at the dawn of 5G, AR and other game-changing technologies. Croquet is a foundational company for a massive new market.”
Croquet’s technology is foundational for enabling collaboration for AR using 5G networks. We make the digital world as real as the physical.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
Our singular focus is to scale the business with at least 50 outstanding use-cases in different industries and applications, both consumer and enterprise. We are expanding our edge-based reflector network across the world so that our users will have an amazing experience anywhere they are. We are also preparing for Series A funding round and expanding our global network of reflectors to provide superior service anywhere on earth.
What advice can you offer companies in Los Angeles that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
Everything depends upon the team – great developers and then great evangelists. Strive to build a great MVP and get into the marketplace. Validate the business model and begin booking customer revenue as quickly as possible to show investors that you are solving a problem for actual customers.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
Croquet is a foundational platform for a new generation of software, a form of communications and experience that the world has never seen. We intend to own the live collaboration space with very happy developers and delighted end-users.
We intend to own the live collaboration space with very happy developers and delighted end-users.
What is your favorite 3D game to play?
My favorite game is Portal, by Valve Software. It was an incredibly entertaining and fascinating game. What was particularly interesting is that I watched someone play the final level of the game on YouTube and I was convinced that I would never be able to have the skills to complete it. The game was so well structured and thought out that I was able to learn what I needed to know so when I got to the end, though it was not easy, I was able to complete it. As an aside, I actually have the patent on 3D portals.
Do you prefer hiking or surfing in LA?
Actually, I am a hard-core road biker. I love the hills and roads of LA.
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