IT consultancy firm Accenture has strategically invested in Forma Vision via its Accenture Ventures division, the company announced on Thursday.
Forma Vision produces live-streamed volumetric video tools and real-time 3D holographic assets. With its portfolio, Forma has created real-time 3D (RT3D) assets from objects, people, and environments for use across the future Metaverse, no matter the location.
The investments aim to tackle enterprise constraints and build use cases for avatar interactions. Forma Vision’s latest solution creates low-cost and live-streamed volumetric video tools.
An exciting week at #5GHub with the 5G Early Access Program in partnership with @deutschetelekom and @hubraum! Engineers from Forma Vision and @MatsukoCompany are testing DevEdge #5G APIs on a fully functioning 5G standalone network. We can’t wait to see things unfold! pic.twitter.com/BBKaw9ybi1
— T-Mobile Tech Experience (@TechExperience) January 19, 2023
These allow enterprises to teleport people, places, and objects to metaverse experiences at scale. Accenture and other firms have used it for executive meetings, employee training, and other gatherings.
David Treat, Senior Managing Director and Global Lead of Accenture’s Metaverse Continuum Business Group, said,
“Accenture sees the metaverse as an evolving and expanding continuum of technologies that will increasingly blur the boundary between the physical and the digital and transform the way businesses and consumers interact. We believe Forma Vision’s volumetric video technology will enable more immersive, engaging interactions and help further bridge real and virtual worlds by allowing people, places and things to be more authentically represented in the metaverse”
The news comes after Accenture launched its Metaverse Continuum Group to guide organisations, enterprises, and startups in developing the Metaverse. It provides expertise in customer experience (CX), eCommerce, the blockchain, the Metaverse, artificial intelligence (AI), and others technologies.
The Dublin-based IT consultancy revealed in findings this month that the Metaverse is expected to provide $1 trillion USD to commerce by 2025.
Adam Kirk, Founder and Chief Executive of Forma Vision, added,
“Volumetric collaboration is the future of hybrid work. Our mission is to bring truly natural communication to enterprise, to allow everyone to contribute meaningfully independent of location. With Accenture as our partner, we will deliver unparalleled collaboration experiences to a wide range of enterprise customers.”
The news comes as other companies such as Varjo, Unity, NVIDIA, Canon, and Meta Platforms develop teleportation tools to deepen team collaboration. Their platforms can scan environments to capture them for the Metaverse and develop digital assets in minutes.
An exciting week at #5GHub with the 5G Early Access Program in partnership with @deutschetelekom and @hubraum! Engineers from Forma Vision and @MatsukoCompany are testing DevEdge #5G APIs on a fully functioning 5G standalone network. We can’t wait to see things unfold! pic.twitter.com/BBKaw9ybi1
— T-Mobile Tech Experience (@TechExperience) January 19, 2023
According to a recent tweet, Forma Vision and Matsuko had tested Developer Edge (DevEdge) 5G application programme interfaces (APIs) on a “fully functioning 5G standalone network.” The experiment resulted from collaboration with Deutsche Telekom and telecom innovation hub Hubraum.
Project Spotlight and Accenture Ventures
The news comes after Forma Vision signed up for Accenture Venture’s Project Spotlight, which invests in firms with disruptive technological innovations. The platform provides funding and networking for emerging technology startups via its Global 2000 initiative.
The programme also provides Accenture’s expert knowledge to back creatives hoping to deliver future innovations.
Accenture has led in industry efforts to build the rising Metaverse after it adopted 60,000 headsets for upskilling and onboarding employees. Accenture’s expert guidance has also led to numerous projects such as a partnership with Singapore’s Changi Airport Group.
The joint venture will provide XR, the internet of things (IoT), machine learning, and other emerging technologies to boost customer experiences for travellers massively.
It also aims to prototype digital loyalty programmes to retain customer business and identification and access management tools for seamless biometrics pipelines.
Recently, Accenture invested in Talespin and Inrupt, two major firms focused on upskilling and Web3 development, respectively.
According to a Revelio Labs report, Accenture led the market in hires for virtual reality (VR) jobs. Numerous factors across the extended reality (XR) market contributed to Accenture’s rise, including the global market slowdown, the fall of cryptocurrencies, and others.
