Engage is a free virtual reality (VR) social eLearning platform for mobile, desktop, and VR headsets, which aims to provide a space for creating and sharing VR content for education and training purposes.
Irish technology firm VR Education Holdings PLC (VRE) is developing Engage in an effort to become world leaders in virtual communications.
Engage is free to install, with event hosting and content creation costing an additional $5.99 per month.
An additional pricing plan for educators and enterprises is available upon request, which offers more customisation options and support for events with up to roughly 1,000 attendees.
History of Investments
Back in May 2020, Engage received $3.3 million USD in funding from Taiwanese VR headset manufacturer HTC VIVE.
The funding allowed VRE the leverage needed to expand its outreach and build upon its sales and marketing capabilities.
The Waterford-based firm also appointed an HTC staff member as a non-executive director to its board of directors.
The news follows HTC VIVE’s ‘Journey into the Next Normal‘ event which took place on the Engage VR platform in June last year.
Interestingly, HTC VIVE revealed its “XR Suite” at the event—an enterprise-level metaverse ecosystem that supports Engage and similar platforms such as Virbela Open Campus and Rec Room.
HTC VIVE also announced its own enterprise-level metaverse for VIVE Sync, which the VR firm claims to be the “future of meetings”.
Alvin W. Graylin, HTC China President discussed the partnership last year, stating:
“We saw first-hand the kind of value we can deliver through ENGAGE by successfully hosting our annual VIVE Ecosystem Conference entirely in virtual reality”
David Whelan, CEO of VR Education added:
“VRE and HTC’s combined offering provides a complete end-to-end service to alleviate the challenges posed by reduced travel due to health and climate change concerns”
Engage Oasis
Following its statement, the firm announced its Engage Oasis metaverse platform this week.
Engage Oasis is described as a “metaverse were business is mixed with pleasure, controlled by the professionals who utilise the platform”.
Oasis is a “cloud-based digital city” where virtual meetings or eCommerce can take place at any time, and the platform gained an impressive customer base of around 100 enterprise clients in just two years, including Facebook and the US State Department.
With a growing number of enterprises expressing interest in Engage, VRE had to answer the call. Engage Oasis will be released in the first half of 2021, with a sneak peak in the coming weeks via newsletter.
