Announcing Subvrsive’s Series A Funding and New CEO

We’re incredibly excited to announce that WPP has invested $4M in Subvrsive as the sole participant in our Series A investment round. This, along with funding from our current individual investors, will allow us to accelerate our growth and continue to build our team with the best talent in the industry.

Subvrsive was founded in August 2015 with a single mission: to create unforgettable Virtual Reality experiences that help brands engage their audiences more deeply than ever before. In less than a year and a half, we’ve been fortunate to create these sorts of experiences on behalf of some of the world’s leading brands, including Lionsgate, MTV, and Downy Unstopables. We were even nominated for an Emmy for our work with Showtime Networks in capturing the first-ever boxing match to be released in its entirety in VR. Needless to say, it’s been a whirlwind of a start.

And yet, we know that this is just the beginning. Not only for Subvrsive, but for our industry as a whole. If our experience in immersive storytelling has taught us anything, it’s that Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality are fundamentally redefining the ways in which brands connect with their audiences. While the sight, sound, and motion of traditional video allow brands to explain their benefits to consumers, the immersive nature of Virtual Reality allows consumers to experience those benefits for themselves - and that experience is captivating. We are convinced that Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality will continue to push the envelope of storytelling and will offer brands more and more effective ways to deepen their engagement with their audiences.

On this journey, we are thrilled to now be working with WPP - the world’s largest communications services company - to bring the benefits of VR and AR to their family of agencies and brand clients.

In addition to the new relationship with WPP, we’re pleased to announce that we have expanded our executive team and appointed Johannes Larcher as our chief executive officer (CEO). Johannes was most recently part of the executive leadership team that built Hulu, the video on demand service owned by Disney, Fox, NBC, and Time Warner. At Hulu, Johannes was responsible for all of the company’s business outside the US, including the successful launch and growth of Hulu Japan.  Previously, Johannes was part of the team that invented paid search at Overture Services (now: Yahoo! Search); and served as CEO of Academy123, which was acquired by Discovery Communications. He brings to Subvrsive a wealth of knowledge and expertise in the media and advertising ecosystem and a passion for the pursuit of better ways through technology.

We couldn’t be happier to welcome him to the team. Austin Mace, our founder, will work closely with Johannes in his new role as Chief Creative Officer.

Between the recent investment by WPP and the appointment of Johannes as our CEO, we’ve created a strong foundation on which to build. We look forward to what’s to come as we continue to push the boundaries of storytelling in Virtual and Augmented Reality.

From the entire Subvrsive team, we thank you so much for your support and hope you’ll stay tuned. The best is yet to come.