Oculus Founder Palmer Luckey was among the investors in a $650k seed round for SideQuest. The unofficial app store for the Oculus Quest is using the funding to expand its team and build a new testing service and other features for VR developers.

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• SideQuest sells Quest apps that aren't approved and/or don't meet requirements for the official Facebook Oculus Store. Co-founder Shane Harris created it as an avenue for developers to distribute their demos and work without Facebook's approval.
• The platform offers both paid and free content, with all proceeds going directly to developers. In the last six months, the store has released 800 new apps.
• Of the investment amount, $500k came from the BoostVR startup accelerator and $150k from The Fund and Luckey. The Oculus founder was pushed out of Facebook three years ago and founded defense product company Anduril Industries, though he continues to support VR projects, including as an angel investor.
• Speaking of his investment, Luckey said no headset manufacturer "should have a stranglehold on the VR ecosystem or unilateral control over what people run on their VR headsets."

A University of Birmingham team created a VR reconstruction of the Mayflower to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the ship's sailing. The Virtual Mayflower project transports users back to Plymouth, U.K., in 1620. It allows users to depart from the Sutton Pool area on a small boat and explore Barbican Harbor before boarding the pilgrim vessel and watching crew and passengers prepare to set sail for the transatlantic journey.

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• Professor and VR veteran Bob Stone, director of the university's Human Interface Technologies team, led the project, which took six years to create.
• Partners, historians, schoolchildren, artists, and actors all contributed to the project, which Stone said is "highly detailed" with "authentic virtual models and scenes." Game designer Mike Acosta, from Royal Leamington Spa College, helped develop virtual passengers, crew members, and local inhabitants for the VR scenarios.
• The original Mayflower passengers departed in September 1620 and spent 66 days at sea before reaching the "New World," where they founded the settlement of Plymouth, Massachusetts.

New job postings in AR/VR:

Decision Scientist, AR/VR
Ursus | Menlo Park, Calif.

Data Engineering Manager, Spark AR (AR/VR)
Facebook | Menlo Park, Calif.

AR/VR Test Automation Project Manager
The Mom Project | Fremont, Calif...

VR applied robotics company Ekto VR launched its first product, a pair of robotic boots that allow VR users to remain in a small space while walking. The Ekto One goes over a person's shoes and uses Vive Tracker pucks to track movement. The shoes bypass simulated walking or VR treadmills to realistically recreate the sensation of walking, all while staying in one spot.

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• Pittsburgh-based Ekto VR is currently selling to medium and large companies for workplace VR training but expects it'll be commercially available in 2-4 years.
• The firm, previously in stealth mode, has spent four years bringing the product to market, which has led to other patent-pending technologies that it says will keep people more "comfortable in VR."
• The firm has yet to disclose the product's price, its revenues, or fundraising.

AR camera marketing platform Camera IQ has raised $5m, bringing its total to more than $14m. The firm plans to expand its sales and marketing team and support new platforms such as e-commerce sites.

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• The startup launched a platform for marketers to create and measure scalable AR campaigns for social media and streaming. It has about 30 clients in beauty, music, gaming, and other industries.
• CEO Allison Ferenci said the pandemic has accelerated brand and customer adoption. AR share rates on Instagram, for example, rose 43% during Q2 2020. The amount of Camera IQ AR experiences garnering more than a million views jumped 70% between Q1 and Q2, the firm said.
• Client wet n wild Beauty/Markwins recently worked with Camera IQ on two AR experiences that allow users to visualize themselves as Sanrio characters.
• The latest funding round was led by Silicon Valley investor Shasta Ventures, with participation from existing investors Waverly Capital, Betaworks Ventures, and Sway Ventures, and new investors Grand Ventures, Space Capital, and Gingerbread Capital.

A California winery used 8th Wall's WebAR technology to bring a virtual experience to its wine bottles. Rock Paper Reality developed the content for Siduri Wines, which allows users to scan a wine label with their smartphones and view an animated web-based AR experience.

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• The experience showed a virtual track wrap around the bottle before a grape comes out of the lid and slides down into a trap door.
• It appears in mobile web browsers and doesn't require a separate app to activate.
• The experience is based on 8th Wall's "curved image targets" technology, which can scan curved rather than flat surfaces with a smartphone camera.
• Siduri, based in Santa Rosa, says it plans to roll out more web-based AR experiences in 2021.

QUICK HITS

• Multiplayer shooter "Frostpoint VR: Proving Grounds" will launch in open beta next week and will be downloadable through Steam and the Oculus Store.
• A PSVR port has arrived for the rhythm game "OhShape."
• CBR covered what fans can expect for VR "Myst" when it launches on the Oculus Quest platform later this year (PCs and other VR systems to follow).
• Arizona Democratic Senate candidate Mark Kelly, a retired astronaut, launched a Snapchat AR astronaut lens for his campaign.
• In a new documentary, Sony Interactive Entertainment President and CEO Jim Ryan said VR remains an "unproven space" as developers come to terms with what makes a great VR experience.
• Litho launched an AR app, Diorama, that lets users animate scenes and create movies directly from their mobile devices.
• Modder VR Panda is working on an Oculus Quest 2 Halo Strap mod.
• Brands see 18.5% of e-commerce revenue from SMS marketing. See 6 top SMS campaigns here.* 

*This is a sponsored link.

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Tweet of the Day: This month's virtual Burning Man festival broke records in VR.