Ever since VR technology has set foot in the global market, it has been a hit! Be it gaming, medicine, cleaning, manufacturing, practicing, or any other industry, VR has made strides. India is also not far behind in the race to adopt VR.
However, consumer investment still remains low. Enterprises, on the other hand, are investing significantly and have welcomed VR technology with open arms. It would not be wrong to say that VR has made a splash in the Indian business market. While there have been discussions on this topic for a long time, recently, in an interview with FE, Salone Sehgal had a lot to say on the topic.
Salone Sehgal, the founding general partner at venture capital firm Lumikai, believes VR has found its niche in the training and development area, especially in industries like oil and gas. VR headsets are being used to train employees and workers on how to tackle dangerous situations. These headsets enable them to live the situation in real-time without having to put themselves at risk. The real-time haptic movements are a plus and help firms effectively train their workers and make them ready to face the dangerous situations that may arise at work.
Sehgal also cited the recent effort from Johns Hopkins University, where they employed VR to train medical residents in complex spinal reconstruction surgeries.
Talking about why consumers aren’t actively looking at VR, she explained the heavy and complex design that may lead to them feeling nauseous after 20–30 minutes of use. The price factor also plays a significant role here.
Sehgal heads the fund’s $50 million fund II and $40 million fund I, which focus on seed-stage startups building in the gaming and interactive media spaces. She believes that the gaming market in India will see a boom in the coming years. While consumer-side investments remain low, Sehgal is still confident in the future of VR in India for the same reason.
“In 2020, not a lot of Indian funds, particularly, were looking at gaming as an investment thesis, but now, globally, there are 60+ specialist funds that are operating in gaming and interactive media as a broader landscape.” she explained.
VR technology and content creation are moving hand-in-hand, which is expected to narrow the gaps between consumers and the adoption of VR headsets in the coming years.
