YC: Requests for Startups

For the AR/VR space, I'm curious about YCs thinking about the addressable market and the possibility to have a unicorn-scale company developing solely for VR/AR in the foreseeable future (that isn't a device manufacturer).

The devices seem to be getting better and better, but the software seems rather lacking (currently typing this from a gorgeous giant display on my Vision Pro, which I use mostly exactly like how I would use my computer). Even in gaming, where the use-case is a lot more mature, we haven't seen the kinds of investment in AAA content that you'd expect, even though clearly the platforms could benefit from it.

I'm curious what YCs thinking is, and if perhaps they just feel no one has earnestly taken it on yet?

Augmedix was built off Google Glass, and is a public company. Not a unicorn though.

Hi there, I wrote this RFP. We like to back strong technical founders, and some may be interested in working in AR/VR like I did years ago. You are right that the software is lacking which is more of an opportunity. Wrt with the market, yes, it is still very nascent, so founders working on this space have to be be very excited and inherently believe in it in the long run.

I think the larger dev ecosystem has created a bit of backlash against the big players for some time and aren't quick to adopt the new tech they are dishing out. I would guess taking a 30% cut, lawsuits, and unfair terms has left a sour taste in everyone's mouth.

And it wasn't until competition stepped up with an indie dev, aka a YouTube VR app called Juno made for the Vision Pro, that even Google decided to jump into developing YouTube for the Vision Pro.

So now we are back at the chicken and the egg problem and few big devs want to support the giants. It'll happen probably eventually when monetization becomes a reality for devs embracing the tech but I don't see it happening any time soon.

Technical founder in the VR/AR space here. Not in a rush so have discounted YC in the past, still may be worth a short chat. Use the "Apply" link on the RFS page?