Jaunt Raises $6.8 Million for Virtual Reality Movies
Facebook and Sony are betting that games will be the first wave of virtual reality content, but that the uses for the technology will eventually broaden. Even before the Oculus Rift or Project Morpheus has had a chance with consumers …
Context & Ripple Effects
Jaunt's $6.8 million round lands one day after Facebook's $2 billion acquisition of Oculus VR closed out the news cycle, with Sony's Project Morpheus also just unveiled — both platform makers framing games as the first wave of headset content. Jaunt is taking the opposite side of that bet: cinematic virtual reality, built before either the Oculus Rift or Morpheus has shipped to consumers.
The story traveled fast — Engadget, Gizmodo, Gigaom, and VentureBeat all carried it the same day — which says less about Jaunt itself than about how hungry coverage was for any VR news that wasn't tied to Facebook's deal.
First-order effects
- Jaunt gets the runway to develop VR film production ahead of any consumer hardware install base, positioning itself as the content-side counterweight when Facebook-owned Oculus and Sony are both betting on games first.
Second-order effects
- If Rift and Morpheus launch into a games-only library, platform owners will face pressure to fund or acquire cinematic VR studios like Jaunt rather than let third-party content define the medium — making early content startups potential acquisition targets.
Third-order effects
- A sustained split between game-first platforms and cinema-first studios would push VR toward the console model, where exclusive filmed content, not hardware specs, decides which headset wins living rooms.
The trend: Venture capital is funding cinematic VR content years ahead of consumer headsets, wagering that virtual reality broadens past gaming into filmed entertainment.