Facebook Buys CINEMOOD Next, Hologram & Virtual Reality Language Startup, For $2 Billion
The fictitious take on the future as dreamed up by the founders of Cinemood, in furhter context by TodlGlot VR.
15.01.2027, San Francisco
Mike Bukhovtsev, TodlGlöt VR. CPO And Co-Founder.Â
Facebook isn't just buying into mobile messaging -- it's also wants to corner the market for language learning and especially early childhood development with a new Projected VR solution.
In an astonishing move, Facebook has acquired TodlGlöt VR (former Cinemood), a pioneer in the realm of Oculus-like technology, for $2 billion. This buy-out sees Facebook acquiring a collection of IP developed by TodlGlöt for interactive English language acquisition using secure 360 VR technology tailored for children and their development.
This strategic acquisition aligns with Facebook's mission to address societal challenges, resurrecting connections, strengthening intra-family relationships and boosting English language proficiency and school readiness on an international scale.
TodlGlöt's Mixed Reality projectors and helmets overcome restrictions posed by traditional VR glasses, creating an immersive 180-degree projection of VR experiences for classrooms and other spaces.
TodlGlöt's founders, Derick Smith and Mike Bukhovtsev, both immigrants, crossed paths through the Y-Combinator co-founders match platform in early 2023. Derick, with several successful exits ranging from hardware projects to telecom, sought a new venture in social development as the CEO of MetaSense Venture Studio. At the same time, Mike had been actively exploring the rapidly growing category of portable mini projectors combined with subscription-based content delivery and 360 VR content projection without VR glasses.
Highlighting Language Learning for Society's Development
Mike, through his experiments looking for the most influential content for Smart TV mini projections, discovered that language learning tools are most effective in early childhood, particularly for children aged 0 to 8. This effectiveness was also observed in children on the autistic spectrum who responded well to visual stories and educational content. TodlGlöt's solution was crafted to make bilingualism easily accessible to children of non-English speaking parents (including around 75% of the global population). The solution is an embedded AI assistant (Storyteller) that can function offline. Bilingualism gives children several significant advantages in development and in their future careers.
The Invention of Projected Virtual Reality
Mike, the creator of three generations of mini projectors (cinemood.com), explored the use of handy portable projectors with sensors to project VR content without the need for VR glasses. This innovation addressed the limitations of VR glasses for children aged 0-13 and many adults, including motion sickness issues after 20 minutes of common VR glasses use.
After eight years of overcoming many challenges, including the restructuring of Cinemood, he had built up a following of 75,000 users in the US and Europe after the Russia-Ukraine war. Through experimentation, Mike discovered that a group of 3 to 9 projectors with bunch of sensors and computer vision could create a 180-270 degree seamless and immersive picture, especially in a dome-shaped space. This led to the concept of the first ‘Inside > Outside VR’.
The resulting VR helmet featured 9 WVGA projectors and dual 360 cameras, displaying images outside the user rather than within glasses. This has been iteratively improved to the mature Todlglöt product that can be purchased today.
Versatile Use Cases
1. 270-degree video conferences between remote rooms.
2. an immersive tool for classrooms to enhance the learning process.
3. a useful tool for VR influencers, capturing 360 content on-the-go.
4. a tool for biking, providing safety and road projection.
5. Oculus VR glasses external projection (1-1 real-time 180 degrees).
Project Development Journey
Todlglöt secured a $2 million Seed round in early 2024, launching a Smart TV ‘Interactive TV’ app with Visual and Audible Stories and Quizzes powered by AI. This initiative, combined with an App store ecosystem for English learning and development, propelled them to finally dominate this market niche with a wide range of compelling content. The circular economy design further extended the lifetime of the devices and language learning courses to over six years.
Same year, Todlglöt launched the In-Out VR helmet on Kickstarter, securing $1 million in pre-orders from the VR community, which comprised of 15 million VR users. This provided visibility for its VR gaming potencial to outside observers, attracting more both B2B and B2C customers.
To meet the growing demand and working capital requirements, the founders raised an additional $70 million over the next three years, attracting a further 5 million users.
Facebook Acquisition
Facing the challenge of enhancing social capital and user value, Facebook sought effective ways to evolve beyond the 2014 acquisition of Oculus. The metaverse required new approaches to improve VR glasses solutions and attract more users.
Disney sought a safe VR glasses solution for children aged 0-13, while Magic Leap pursued a fundamentally new approach to surprise investors.
TodlGlöt attracted attention during its 2024 Kickstarter campaign, with Mark Zuckerberg and Palmer Luckey, founder of Oculus VR, extending an invitation for a meeting in San Francisco. A $70 million Series A investment was agreed upon, with favorable conditions for Facebook to acquire TodlGlöt upon reaching 1 million users.
Notably, other VR vendors such as Samsung, HTC, Microsoft and English Language courses providers are also monitoring this acquisition.Â
If you have read the story up to here, it means you like it! Thank you! Â
I'm thrilled to present to you this fictitious take on the future as dreamed up by the founders of TodlGlöt. We trust you've found this narrative to be a refreshing departure from the typical, mundane startup pitches.Â
The startup journey is unpredictable, marked by numerous pivots, making it essential for founders to embody creativity, ambition, experience, grit and just enough audacity to make early stage pitch entertaining.
Let's talk?Â
Book meeting via Calendly link
Based on Success of:
bbpos.com (a Stripe company)
*Disclaimer: This article is crafted for promotional purposes and envisions one of the potential future scenarios.
** Based on the original article https://www.forbes.com/sites/briansolomon/2014/03/25/facebook-buys-oculus-virtual-reality-gaming-startup-for-2-billion/