Several key investors have backed the US startup in a bid to expand the global XR ecosystem
Spatial computing firm Talespin announced on Thursday it had completed a Series C fundraiser valued at $20 million USD from several key investors.
SEEK Investments and Allomer Capital led the funding round, and were joined by Accenture Ventures, Pearson Ventures, Go1, and Sony Innovation Fund.
According to Talespin, immersive learning was an instrumental tool in delivering “more engaging and effective learning experiences,” allowing professionals to upskill with virtual reality (VR) learning.
Talespin’s Work in the XR Community
Talespin’s platform aims to develop ecosystems for content creators, platforms, enterprise clients and customers, as well as XR hardware partners, empowering users with 3D virtual humans and learning environments to boost job and conversational skills using analytics, real-time feedback, and other tools.
The company’s no-code CoPilot Designer facilitates immersive content creation for people designing learner modules.
The Los Angeles, California-based enterprise has also worked extensively with major clients such as AIA Hong Kong & Macau, Accenture, JFF, Farmers Insurance, and top Fortune 500 firms to support rapid, bespoke upskilling solutions across industries.
Kyle Jackson, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Talespin, said in a statement that creating immersive learning ecosystems required enterprises to “change the skills profile and resources required to create content.”
He explained that immersive learning simulations could be created “in a matter of days” by designers, adding,
“Our new funding and investor relationships will help us further scale this platform, and realize our broader company vision for learning in the metaverse”
Tom Lounibos, Managing Director for Accenture Ventures, said that Talespin was “ideally positioned” to benefit from the merging of learning and spatial computing “amid heightened interest in immersive learning, augmented reality and the metaverse”.
He added Accenture Ventures looked forward to working with Talespin on the latter’s Project Spotlight programme, which supports new XR professionals and increases awareness of global educational tools.
Accenture Positions Itself for the Metaverse
The comments come as Accenture, one of the world’s top IT consultancy firms, pushes for industry Metaverse and XR solutions with strategic moves such as launching programmes aimed at training future generations of XR professionals, entrepreneurs, and creatives, and by joining new associations.
Accenture launched a programme in early February to back women-led firms across India developing next-generation XR, artificial intelligence (AI), the internet of things (IoT), and other technologies.
The programme hopes to boost critical funding for businesswomen in the country, namely as Indian ventures faced a massive shortfall in funding opportunities for female entrepreneurs.
The consultancy behemoth also joined the Washington, DC-based XR Association along with tech giants Unity, Qualcomm, and others to build XR ecosystems to back the global immersive solutions industry.
In October last year, just roughly a week ahead of Facebook’s massive rebrand to Meta Platforms, Inc, Accenture ordered a record 60,000 Quest 2 headsets for training employees across its 125,000-person workforce in a move to support immersive onboarding training solutions.
XR and the Jobs Crisis
The news comes amid the reported ‘Great Resignation,’ which saw thousands across the United States quit their jobs in record numbers.
In November and December alone, roughly 4.5 million and 4.3 million people, respectively, resigned from employment due to the ongoing job market changes triggered by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, US Bureau of Labor Statistics figures revealed last year.
More employees have begun working from home, and the need for greater digitalisation and remote work opportunities has sparked investments in the Metaverse and Web 3.0 technologies across sectors.
XR Today conducted a round table discussion on immersive learning technologies with Moth+Flame, Seabery, Taqtile, and Virti, who offered their insights on the benefits of using XR onboarding solutions, which reported sharp increases in learner retention, engagement, and overall positive feedback.
The XRA also released a report in November last year detailing the need for global firms to step up efforts to provide XR solutions for firms seeking to upskill and reskill their workforces amid the crisis.
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