Entrypoint Is Aiming To Bring VR Content To The Masses

Entrypoint, the New York startup that helps content creators create interactive VR content, raised $2 million in a round of seed funding.

According to a report, the investment round was led by Samsung NEXT, the venture capital arm of the South Korean electronics giant, and Two Sigma Ventures. Other participants in the round included Indicator Ventures, KBS Ventures, Galvanize Ventures, Social Starts, Female Founders Fund and Virtual Reality Investments.

The startup helps content creators get around the sometimes tough task of making interactive content by offering a platform that includes drag-and-drop elements that can be placed into an interactive video. “It used to be, back in the day, you had to know HTML, Javascript, CSS — but nowadays, you have sites like Squarespace or WordPress where anyone can go in and make a beautiful website,” Ben Doyle, the company’s CTO, said in an interview. “We’re trying to do the same thing — making it extremely easy for non-programmers to make interactive 360 video.”

The founders declined to provide technical details about how the platform works, which is launching this summer, but Doyle did say the backbone of the platform’s functionality is WebGL, an API that lets web browsers display interactive 3D and 2D graphics without the need for plugins. Once the video is finished, the user gets a URL, which eliminates the need for viewers to download mobile applications to watch the video.

“We think it’s really unwise for companies to expect users to hear about these apps, download them and keep them on their phone,” said Carissa Flocken, the company’s CEO, in the same report. Colin Beirne, a managing director at Two Sigma, said in the report that the startup is the “perfect company for right now because they’re enabling more and more people to experience VR content.”