An augmented reality start-up based in Israel is eyeing the UK market as part of potential global expansion.
Mixed Place is plotting a $7 million funding round after delivering mixed reality projects for pan-European supermarket chain Billa and Belgian-based global food chain Ahold-Delhaize.
Two of Europe’s largest retail chains, they used the company’s technology as part of a promotional campaign with the aim of increasing customer loyalty, interaction and sales.
Mixed Place has completed the first phase of development of an AR cloud infrastructure that will enable a wide range of commercial bodies to easily and quickly create location-based digital content, either stationary or moving, and place it with great precision in open spaces and within structures.
The content can remain at the same exact location and be accessed by any user at any time, without a time limit.
Following a $750,000 seed round in November 2017 from PPI Worldwide, the aim is to now take advantage of markets around the world hungry for mixed reality content – a hybrid of virtual and augmented reality.
“Within a few years mixed reality will become the dominant reality of our lives and billions of people will experience it on a daily basis as a new routine,” said CEO and founder Alon Melchner.
“Within two years digital glasses, which all major hardware companies are developing as a means of accessing digital content, will be as commonplace as the smartphone and the tablet.
“The technological infrastructure that we are now proposing will expedite the development of mixed reality applications and will successfully ease the penetration of digital glasses due to enter the market soon – and to be followed by contact lenses, holograms and other display methods.”
He added: “Our mixed reality infrastructure will enable location-based, streaming applications in fields such as entertainment, retail, tourism and advertising.
“We are interested in implementing it in UK and we would love to share years of research to enable the UK market to innovate.”
One example of how the tech could be used is in setting up a sportswear store at a shopping mall within around 30 minutes.
Such a store would be totally empty and without any actual furniture but would exhibit to visitors a ‘live’ display of personalised products in pre-determined locations within the store as if the products were real.
The display would be permanent and every visitor to the store would be exposed to the exhibit at any time without any changes occurring.