visioncamp: a closer look
With the ubiquity of cameras and motion sensors, and the advent of computer vision technology, we at betaworks are investigating what it means for a camera to not only capture its environment, but to be able to understand and augment what it is looking at.
The mode of interaction between people and technology continues to evolve at a rapid pace, empowering users to accomplish more in various contexts, and unlocking new behaviors. Our betacamp accelerator program has explored frontier paradigms and modalities such as conversational interfaces and verbal computing, and we are excited to now work with pioneers in the visual computing space.
Visioncamp will be the third installation in our camp program, focused on AR, computer vision, and ‘camera-first’ products/services — everything that becomes possible when the camera knows what it is looking at. The types of products we are looking for extend beyond the application layer built on ARKit+ARCore, and include middleware tools for image/video processing (or computer vision more broadly), as well as stickers, filters, and any kind of overlays.
Our camp programs present a unique opportunity to bring together tightly-related companies in the betaworks family over the course of a 3 month program. This dynamic is especially exciting for visioncamp, which we are thrilled to co-host with one of our most successful studio companies, GIPHY — we’ll be working with their product and marketing teams who can reach over 200M people every day!
“I guess it’s fun, if you got nothing to do in life” — Kathie Lee’s review of GIPHY World
In addition to GIPHY’s involvement, we will be working with a number of phenomenal partners from the betaworks network including:
- Betaworks investments: Viro, 8th Wall, MojiLaLa, and Uru, who are all building technology to enable mixed reality experiences.
- The large platform providers including Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Samsung, and Snap
- Companies pushing the boundaries of computer vision tech+APIs such as Clarifai, ebay, EyeEm, Pinterest, SketchFab, and more
- Corporate partners like Lowe’s and L’Oreal with specific initiatives to incorporate AR into their business and seeking pilot opportunities (Make up is the original AR, after all)
- Expert and domain-specific investors like Super Venutres, LDV Capital, Presence Capital, Loup Ventures, and the Shasta Camera Fund
- The smartest tech investors from the West and East Coasts, including Greylock, GGV, SVAngel, Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed, General Catalyst, LHV, ENIAC, RRE, and more
Additional program details include:
- Participating teams each receive $200k in funding from betaworks, GGV, and the Greycroft Tracker Fund.
- Eleven weeks in-residence from January 16 to March 30 at the betaworks studio
- On-demand access to betaworks’ platform teams, which include creative, design, data science, and finance.
- Tailored programming focused on product development (AR-first UX/UI best practices, integrating/building out computer vision APIs, working with large platform providers, etc), business development (customer acquisition, storytelling, marketing+PR, etc), and fundraising.
Applications for visioncamp are open until October 10! If you are a founder building an AR/computer vision product, apply here.
You can follow me on Twitter (@fahimafadl), and contact me by email with any questions about the program (fahim at betaworks dot com)
